In 2006, 20-year-old Malarvizhi* walked into a Primary Health Centre (PHC) in Villupuram district as a sanitary worker after being roped in through the village panchayat. Three years later, she, along with many women like her, was brought under the ambit of the Reproductive and Child Health (RCH) scheme, and their monthly pay was hiked from ₹500 to ₹1,000. Today, she and 3,100-odd sanitary workers continue to work for 12 hours a day, with no weekly offs, no maternity leave and benefits, for a pay of merely ₹1,500 a month.
While joining the Tamil Nadu public health sector in 2015, little did Bharathi* know that her career path would be paved with struggles and protests. A staff nurse, she was recruited through the Medical Services Recruitment Board (MRB) for a pay of ₹7,700 a month. After a series of protests, the first in 2017, her salary rose to ₹14,000. Another struggle for ‘equal pay for equal work’ got her a 30% increment in 2020.
C. Venkatakrishnan was among the first 16 dentists to be recruited to work at PHCs in 2004. Starting with a daily honorarium of ₹500, it took almost 12 years for him to get a consolidated pay of ₹20,000 a month. After numerous struggles, the 48-year-old secretary of the Tamil Nadu Primary Health Centre Dental Surgeons Association, along with 384 of his colleagues, has been receiving a salary of ₹34,000 a month since 2021.
