Greater Chennai Corporation terminates fever survey workers

The number of FSWs was reduced to 1,400 a few months ago after the number of COVID-19 cases came down, said a sanitary inspector. “When the pandemic was at its peak, each of the 200 divisions had around 100 fever survey workers. The number was gradually reduced to 7. All these workers have been terminated on October 31,” the official said.

The sanitary inspector added that FSWs played a vital role in the Corporation’s fight against the pandemic by collecting details of persons with symptoms and mobilising them to fever clinics and vaccination camps.

Meanwhile, Greater Chennai Corporation Sanitary Inspector Sangam requested senior officials to reappoint fever survey workers. The Sangam pointed out that activities such as swab collection, RT-PCR entry, following up COVID cases, spot vaccination, and Cowin portal entry were cumbersome for the staff.

“The number of cases reported daily has come down, but we have been asked to collect 100 samples a day from every zone. We have to use NULM workers and malaria workers for COVID work from now. Also, data entry has become difficult, as malaria workers are not well versed in using computers,” a member of the association said.

When asked, a senior official said fever survey workers were terminated after the first wave when the cases came down. “They have been terminated as cases came down. This will avoid expenditure towards salary to the workers,” he reasoned.