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A prolonged salary dispute has triggered an indefinite strike by sanitation workers at Taxila Tehsil Headquarters (THQ) Hospital and Wah General Hospital, disrupting essential cleaning services.
Dozens of sanitation employees have not received their wages for the past three months, leaving hospitals struggling to maintain basic hygiene standards, as reported by Dawn. According to Dawn, the ongoing strike has severely affected routine sanitation operations, including the cleaning of hospital wards, washrooms, waste collection, disinfection, and the safe disposal of hazardous medical waste. The disruption has raised concerns among patients, attendants, and healthcare professionals over the increased risk of infections and the deterioration of hygiene in sensitive medical areas. The workers say the protest is driven by financial hardship rather than labour activism. They claim repeated requests to the contractor and relevant authorities for payment have yielded no lasting solution, leaving them with little choice but to suspend their duties. One sanitation worker, Bano, described the difficult situation, saying that her family has been left without a source of income while basic household needs remain unmet. The strike has had an immediate impact inside both hospitals, where patients and visitors have reported declining cleanliness, particularly in washrooms and other high-risk areas requiring regular sanitation. Although personnel from the Suthra Punjab initiative remain deployed at the facilities, reports indicate they have been unable to adequately manage specialised hospital hygiene and medical waste handling. Responding to the situation, the company's manager stated that the Punjab Health Department had outsourced sanitation services but had yet to release the funds required to pay the contractor, as highlighted by Dawn. He attributed the delay to the closure of the fiscal cycle and said the company is awaiting fresh financial allocations from the government. Until those funds are received, he added, employee salaries cannot be disbursed. The affected workers have appealed to the Punjab government, particularly Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz, to ensure the immediate release of the pending salaries, as reported by Dawn. (ANI)
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