India coronavirus: The underpaid and unprotected women leading the Covid-19 war
Some 900,000 female community health workers are on the frontline as part
of India’s battle against Covid-19. But they are poorly paid, ill-prepared and
vulnerable to attacks and social stigma, reports BBC Marathi’s Shrikant
Bangale.
“The value of our life
is just 30 rupees [less than $1], according to the government,” says Alka
Nalawade, a community health worker in the western state of Maharashtra. “The government is
paying us 1,000 rupees ($13; £10) a month for corona-related work,” she adds.
“That is 30 rupees daily for putting our life in danger.” Ms Nalawade is among
the state’s 70,000 Ashas, short for Accredited Social Health Activists. She is
a single mother, and has been doing this job for 10 years now in Pawarwadi
village, where she lives.
Ashas are drawn from
local and largely rural communities, and are a crucial element in India’s
primary and community health programmes. They go door-to-door educating people
about maternal and child health, contraception, immunisation and sanitation, as
well as enrolling them in health programmes and monitoring the results.
Their role in the
fight against Covid-19 is not that different - they visit the homes they have
been assigned, educate families about isolation, and monitor people for
symptoms of the virus. But the risk is far greater than anything they have
faced before.
For one, they don’t
have the right gear, including masks or sanitiser. India is facing a severe shortage of personal
protective equipment (PPE), and even doctors and nurses are
unprotected. Several Ashas told the
BBC that they use cotton masks which they wash daily so they can re-use them -
and for sanitiser, they have a bottle of spirit that they mix with water. One
of them, Karuna Shinde, says she carries a scarf with her, which she uses to
cover her face.... https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-52279025
