Six lakh virus-hunting women health workers go on strike
New Delhi: They helped eradicate polio in India and reduced the number of women dying during child birth. But the country's catastrophic Coronavirus outbreak, now the third-largest in the world, has pushed its all-female army of contact-tracing health workers to breaking point.
After months of harassment, underpayment and lack of protection from infection, about 600,000 of the country's one million Accredited Social Health Activists –or ASHAs, which also means hope in Hindi –are going on strike for two days starting August 7 to draw attention to their plight. Union leaders expect more may join as the word spreads.
They want better and timely pay, and a legal status that ensures minimum wages, to sustain their work of helping Indian officials track down high-risk contacts of Covid-19 patients across slums and hard-to-reach rural parts of the country.
Losing the ASHAs would not only threaten India's virus-containment effort, but also impact the other essential health services they provide to rural households that range from child vaccinations to tuberculosis control.
"For working from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. we get only 2,000 rupees ($27) a month and no masks or sanitizer," said Sulochana Rajendra Sabde, a 45-year-old ASHA in the Jalgaon district of Maharashtra, a state along India's west cost with Mumbai as its capital.
Sabde is yet to be paid the extra 2,000 rupees per month promised for virus-related work by the state government. "We have to maintain so many documents for a measly sum which is also never on time," she said. "The government has no place for us in its heart."
Inability to Control
The ASHAs' frustration is more evidence of the Indian government's inability to fully control the epidemic, which has infected over 1.9 million including the Home Minister and Bollywood's biggest star. Despite a nationwide lockdown at the end of March that caused economic devastation, India's outbreak has accelerated nationwide, overwhelming its ramshackle health care system.
Saira Anwar Sheikh, an ASHA in the state of Maharashtra, was given masks and gloves but no protective wear. She died of Covid-19 on June 1, leaving her husband and four children behind. As many as 20 ASHAs have died in the outbreak, according to a local media report.
