For months, the health worker, Ms Bhanwar Bai Jadoun, had been advising the woman to give birth at a hospital. But the woman’s mother-in-law insisted on delivering the baby at home with the help of a local midwife.
Over the past two decades, a government program has provided basic health care at the doorsteps of homes across India’s vast territory. Essential to the project is an army of more than one million female health workers, who trek through rugged terrain and dense jungles to treat some of India’s most vulnerable women and children, for little pay and sometimes at the expense of their own lives.
During the deadly waves of the coronavirus pandemic, these women — known by the acronym Asha for accredited social health activist — were crucial in saving the lives of hundreds of thousands of coronavirus patients, officials at India’s Health Ministry say, by helping in the early detection of cases and spreading information on prevention. They were instrumental in countering vaccine hesitancy and helping India carry out one of the largest vaccination drives in the world.
Dozens of the workers died during the pandemic after exposure to the coronavirus, in part because they lacked protective gear. One study of three Indian states by public health researchers at Oxfam in 2020 found that at least 25 per cent of the health workers received no masks, and only 62 per cent received gloves.
“People were reading lies on social media, and we were motivating them to take vaccines,” said Ms Seema Kanwar, who has done the job since 2006. “We told them we took the vaccine, and we did not die; how will you?” As part of that effort, India introduced a health plan in 2005 that, among other things, introduced incentives for giving birth in a hospital.