After junior doctors, contract, and paramedical staff: second stir grips Andhra’s health department

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Contract and paramedical employees working across the State’s Health, Medical and Family Welfare Department launched the first phase of a graded agitation on Friday (August 21, 2026), with the Andhra Pradesh Medical and Health Contract Employees Joint Action Committee (JAC) alleging that the government had failed to even acknowledge their demands despite a large protest in Vijayawada on June 17.

G. Koteswara Rao, chairman of the JAC and a staff nurse at the King George Hospital (KGH), Visakhapatnam , told The Hindu that the government “did not address” the committee’s demands and had “not even recognised” that the problems existed, even after that protest. He appealed to Health Minister Satya Kumar Yadav and G. Veerapandian, Secretary, Health and Family Welfare, to intervene and resolve the issues.

In a representation addressed to senior officials, the JAC said staff nurses, laboratory technicians, pharmacy officers, ECG technicians, emergency medical technicians and dialysis technicians, among other contract and para-medical employees serving under the Directorates of Medical Education (DME), Public Health (DPH) and Secondary Health (DSH), had been working for several years without a resolution to their grievances.

The stir is to unfold in stages. Representations are being submitted to Government General Hospital superintendents, District Medical and Health Officers, District Coordinators of Hospital Services and District Collectors till August 27. Employees will wear black badges while on duty from August 24 to 27, followed by lunch-hour protests and human chains on August 28 and 29. A shutdown of online work, including Electronic Health Records and “ABHA” registrations at primary health centres, is planned from August 30 to September 1, a pen-down protest at DME and DSH offices from September 2 to 3, a State-wide dharna from September 6, and a duty boycott, described as the final step, from September 8, with prior notice to authorities and safeguards for emergency services.

The JAC’s charter of demands includes immediate regularisation of contract staff, full gross pay pending regularisation, an ex gratia of ₹50 lakh and employment for a family member in the event of death on duty, Employees’ Provident Fund coverage and paid medical leave, and transfer facilities for staff posted away from their families for years.

The stir comes even as junior doctors under the Andhra Pradesh Junior Doctors’ Association continue their stipend strike , now into its second week, seeking a 30% hike against the government’s offer of 3%, besides opposing the proposed increase in the retirement age of senior doctors to 65. Two cadres within the same department are now pressing overlapping grievances at the same time.

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