At the time, when the entire world underlines the need for extra hygiene and precautionary measures to ward off the coronaivrus risk, the sanitary workers of Metropolitan Corporation of Islamabad (MCI) put their lives in peril to keep the city neat and clean.
With total strength of above 1,500, the MCI sanitary workers whose job includes roads cleaning, door-to-door garbage collection and emptying pits and trash trolleys require extra care and complete safety kits to keep the coronavirus at bay, especially during their exposure to untidy and filthy places.
“We are not being given face masks, sanitizers and gloves on regular basis. Those equipment should be provided to every sanitary worker by the MCI whether he is permanent employee of the corporation or working under a private contractor,” a sanitary worker at sector G-7 requesting anonymity alleged.
“I have to buy my own mask daily to ensure safety of mine and my family members who live with me in a small flat,” the worker added.
He passionately called for providing the safety kits to every worker, especially women and elderly staffers.
Another worker performing duty at sector Ga-6 said he had raised this issue time and again with the authorities concerned but unfortunately it seemed that the words fell on deaf ears.
The worker said efforts of doctors, police personnel, journalists and others were being recognized for performing duties amid the pandemic but nobody acknowledged our work.
“We are endangering our own and our family members’ lives just to ensure cleanliness in the city but we are not being called as frontline fighters in a fight against the coronavirus,” he regretted.
He said most of the sanitary workers lived in congested areas, especially at slums and a single case might break out the pandemic in the particular locality.
A senior officer of MCI Sanitation Department said all-out efforts were being made to ensure regular medical supplies to the sanitary workers in the times of pandemic.
He said steps were being taken to sensitize them against the implications of the COVID- 19 to push them for following the SOPs on regular basis.
Joint Christian Action Committee Rawalpindi and Islamabad President Basharat Khokhar, however, rejected the notion that all the sanitary workers had received the Personal Protective Equipment (PPE).
“As of now, there are 1,200 permanent workers of the MCI sanitation wing and 800 working under the private contractors. Only 50 per cent gets PPE so far,” he noted. Basharat said the sanitary workers, especially temporary one did not get any social security benefits and health facilities which negated morality. —APP
