SHILLONG, Feb 18: Health Minister AL Hek recently said the COVID-19 vaccination is voluntary but some employees of the National Health Mission (NHM), Meghalaya alleged the NHM Director Ramkumar S threatened them to either take the shots or not come for work.
“I was asked to take the shot but I declined. He (Ramkumar) told me if that is the case, don’t show up for work. I said it’s okay,” an employee, who did not wish to be named, said.
He said many others agreed to take the shots against their wishes to save their jobs.
Another employee said when some of them were unwilling to get vaccinated, the NHM Director had called them up and asked for the reasons behind their reluctance.
“We told him that we do not want to be vaccinated and he said if you are not willing, don’t come to work from tomorrow,” the employee said.
According to Ramkumar, if only the doctors are vaccinated, it will not serve the purpose as they could be affected by the staff if any of them is infected, the employee said.
Stating that vaccination cannot be forced upon, the employees said forceful immunization amounts to violation of their rights. They said they were not coming out in the open fearing actions.
“If not now, they will surely take revenge someday. We don’t want to risk it,” one of the employees said.
Ramkumar rubbished the charges.
“It is false. We had tried to counsel those who had apprehensions about vaccination. There are people in NHM who haven’t taken the shots due to medical and other reasons,” Ramkumar said.
The first phase of vaccination has shown encouraging results. Of all the districts, Ri Bhoi had initially recorded the lowest turnout. Things have improved since.
Recently Hek had said that the state recorded around 99.9% vaccination in the first phase.
