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Turkmenistan’s Ministry of Health has ordered regional offices to send doctors and other medical staff to the cotton fields. Those unwilling to go are, as in past years, expected to pay for hired pickers out of their own pockets, Chronicles of Turkmenistan reported.
According to journalists, the ministry’s directives were sent to the regions on September 8—two days before President Serdar Berdymukhamedov officially announced the start of the harvest on September 10.
In the health department of Lebap province, officials confirmed that doctors, nurses, orderlies, and technical staff of hospitals and clinics have been assigned daily quotas of 45 kilograms of cotton.
Medical workers in Turkmenabat complained that they were ordered to go to the fields even after overnight shifts. The only alternative is to hire a replacement, paying 50 manats per day ($14 at the official rate, about $2.50 on the black market).
A doctor at an infectious diseases hospital said that every year during harvest season, staff spend up to two-thirds of their salaries on hiring pickers, since not every specialist can head to the fields on weekends or after duty.
As the outlet noted, with doctors and other workers sent to pick cotton, hospitals and clinics are left staffed mainly by people close to retirement age or pensioners.
This year, the Health Ministry was not alone in moving ahead of schedule. Regional governors launched the cotton harvest in mid-August, weeks before the president’s announcement, in a rush to please the leadership and report completed quotas by September 27, Turkmenistan’s Independence Day.
Reports also indicate that as early as August, officials had begun collecting money from public sector employees—including teachers, doctors, and state enterprise workers in Lebap and Mary provinces—to fund the hiring of cotton pickers.
