SHILLONG:
State Health and Family Welfare Minister, James Sangma claimed that the government had informed the protesting Meghalaya EMRI Workers Union (MEMRIWU) that their service was an emergency one that affects the lives of those who might have certain medical emergencies and require the services of an ambulance.
“To have an agitation like this is very unfortunate and we have expressed this to them and that they must cease the agitation immediately and come back to work,” the Health and Family Welfare Minister said.
Sangma said that if something unfortunate happens during their agitation the responsibility will squarely fall on them.
He also conveyed to MEMRIWU that no state government in the country runs the 108 emergency services. He said that all of them have been outsourced to private parties.
The Health and Family Welfare Minister said that the government has done an audit and found out that there have been many lapses in terms of the performance and the government is going for a fresh bid where a better agency will be engaged to run the emergency service.
He said that this was one of the demands of the MEMRIWU.
He said that this service is run on a 24×7 basis and of an emergency nature and therefore it is best operated by those well versed and experienced in the job.
Sangma also said that their demand asking the government to take over the 108 emergency service could be due to bad experiences with the present company but it would not necessarily mean that the same will happen in the future.
The Health and Family Welfare Minister said that they have told the union that the government will put in new interventions whereby review meetings will be held every quarter to look at the qualitative functioning of the emergency system operators.
He added that any grievances and concerns can be taken up in these quarterly review meetings.