Infantry in the war to improve public health in India

Infopay specialty New York Times.

BAKTOLI, India – The husband of a woman who was in severe labor rushed towards her while a health worker was walking around daily in a village in the northern Indian state of Rajasthan.

For months, the health worker, Banwar Boy Jadavun, advised the woman to give birth at the hospital, but her mother-in-law insisted on giving birth at home with the help of a local midwife.

Now the delivery was complicated. Jadavun recommended that the woman be taken to a hospital about 16 kilometers (15 miles) from Baghdad, where she was alerted by doctors. They got a motorcycle taxi. The mother and baby were rescued.

“When people see me every day, they know they can trust me,” Jadon said. “They see me as a guide to a healthier life.”

For the past two decades, a government program has been providing basic health care at the doorsteps of people across the vast Indian subcontinent. The army, which has more than a million female health workers, is at the center of the project, crossing the rugged terrain and dense jungles to care for some of India’s most vulnerable women and children, at low cost and sometimes even their own lives.

These women are not doctors or nurses, but are trained to fill the gaps in health care in rural and urban areas, and these services are unprecedented. For many years, he has been involved in the treatment of underlying diseases and in promoting vaccination and family planning.

Ritu Priya Mehrotra, Professor of Community Health, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, said, “They have become the backbone of primary care services in this country.

During the deadly waves of the corona virus infection, these women (known by the acronym Asha, a recognized health social activist) played a key role in saving the lives of hundreds of thousands of corona virus patients, according to Indian Ministry of Health officials. They helped spread the word about early detection and prevention of cases. They have been instrumental in tackling vaccination reluctance and helping India carry out one of the largest vaccination campaigns in the world.

Now that the workload of the epidemic has begun to subside, these women, who claim to be continuing their work for more than 14 hours a day and sometimes seven days a week, are waging a nationwide struggle against not being paid enough.

Regional governments pay health workers $ 40 a month in incentives. For example, every hospital they facilitate has a $ 4 bonus for childbirth and $ 1.50 for every child under the age of 1 who receives a full immunization schedule.

They ask for a monthly salary of about $ 150 and an incentive.

“We work even if mortar bombs fall on villages,” said Bimla Devi, who lives near the India-Pakistan border in Jammu, where troops often open fire. “When people are affected, you cannot tell them that your job is to take care of women only; Go and help ”.

Dozens of workers have died from infections after being exposed to the corona virus because they had no safety equipment. A 2020 study by Oxfam Public Health Inspectors in three Indian states found that at least 25 per cent of health workers were not provided with masks and only 62 per cent were provided with gloves.

Geeta Devi, a worker, contracted COVID-19 at a hospital where she went to give birth to a pregnant woman in the northern state of Himachal Pradesh. When she got sick, her husband had trouble finding a bed for her.

“She died while helping people without taking care of herself,” said her husband Rajvansh Singh.

Despite the dangers, health workers across the country cared for corona virus patients, dispensed medicine packs, isolated patients and sometimes provided food to those isolated. Its most important functions are to promote vaccinations and to ensure continued access to essential medical services when hospital beds are vacated.

Following rumors circulating on social media that the Govt-19 vaccines had killed people or made them infertile, many women described being beaten with sticks and chased away by angry villagers.

“People are reading lies on social media and we encouraged them to get vaccinated,” said Seema Kanwar, who has been doing this since 2006. “We got vaccinated and told them we were not going to die; how are they going to die?”

With a population of 1.4 billion, India has a poor record of health care, especially for women and children. Malnutrition is widespread and maternal and infant mortality rates are high. Causes include poverty, lack of access to doctors in rural areas, opposition to modern medicine, and entrenched denial of women’s rights.

However, health officials have made significant progress in recent years in reducing maternal mortality rates. The maternal mortality rate fell from 122 to 100 per 100,000 births between 2015 and 2019, the Ministry of Health announced in March. The United Nations has set a target of 70 by 2030.

As part of these measures, India launched a health plan in 2005, which, among other things, includes incentives for hospital births.

Considering the difficulty in getting the news in remote areas and the widespread distrust of government programs, experts say success is not possible without the trust that health workers have earned within their communities.

Every morning, Jadoon, a history graduate, would leave his house and sometimes cover his face with a sari when men were nearby, a sign of respect in the countryside. Jadoun serves an area inhabited by thousands of people.

At one house, he advised a woman about getting ready for childbirth; In another, he wrote the name of a woman he found to be pregnant. He is going to monitor her, give her iron pills and register her name at a nearby general hospital.

“We are not only fighting superstition, we are also fighting traditional practices,” Jatoon concluded. “But when we see that women’s deaths during childbirth are zero and there are healthy people around us, I’m proud of what we do.”