Shillong Sept 30: Around 205 employees of the GVK EMRI 108 Ambulance withdrew their service when the clock struck at 12.00 midnight of September 30 as a mark of protest against the EMRI authorities for not responding to a number of grievances faced by them.

These employees withdrew their services of all the 43 EMRI-108 Ambulances operating in the state and handed them to the EMRI authorities at MIMHANS Neurological Building at Lawmali locality in Shillong.

The GVK Emergency Management and Research Institute provides free emergency response service through Toll Free no 108 and started operating in Meghalaya almost a decade ago.

The staffs are reluctant to continue their services due to numerous anomalies.

All Meghalaya EMRI Workers’ Union president, Roipar Kharraswai said that the employees of EMRI-108 Service are on an indefinite strike as neither the EMRI authorities nor the state government is willing to address their problems.

He said, their demands to enhance salaries, repayment of arrears since 2017, strengthening of manpower and improvement of equipments have fallen on the deaf ears of the authorities.

The employees which include drivers and Emergency Medical Staffs who are providing the best of health services to the people of the state round the clock are being paid with a meager salary between Rs. 7,000/- and Rs. 8,000/.

Stating that no new stretchers were given to the ambulances from two years ago till date, he said that that there were instances, in which patients fell to the ground due to the use of old stretchers.

Kharraswai said that EMRI-108 emergency services, which has been highly appreciated by the people of the state for its prompt services to rescue injured persons at accident sites and patients from their homes to hospitals, is however showing signs of weathering away.