Get Inspired, Be Empowered Forums Employment Opportunities Challenges Faced by ASHAs during their Field Works in India

5 replies, 5 voices Last updated by Mayuravarshini Mohana 2 years, 9 months ago
  • Woospire
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    Yash Tiwari
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    @yash
    #32117
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    The ASHA (Accredited Social Health Activist) is a grass-root level worker, who is a bridge between the population and the health system. She works to decrease maternal morbidity and mortality and morbidity associated with diverse infectious diseases. The objective of this paper is to determine the challenges and hurdles faced by ASHA during their fieldwork in a rural area of district Jaipur, Rajasthan. Every day, millions of ASHAs, the grass-root level workers are engaged in bringing about behavioral change in a large population base. They are the bridge between the population and the health system, which strengthens the communication between both. To determine the challenges and hurdles faced by ASHA during their fieldwork in the rural area of district Jaipur, Rajasthan, this study was conducted. The findings indicate that 88% of all households were informed about child immunization through ASHA’s field visits. 54% of mothers had been informed about ARI during pregnancy to minimize complications for them and newborns through ASHA’s field visit. The regularity of travel to the village for domicile was low due to charges involved.

    Awareness, motivation, and initial training provided by the Government to the ASHAs helps them to be motivated to work for a year, mainly in urban areas. But after that their working longevity, discipline, and quality of service deteriorates. This is because they had not been given necessary support systems such as transport facilities during field visits and continuous training. The main purpose of the study was to find out the problems/challenges faced by the ASHAs in their field works.

    There are several challenges faced by ASHAs in discharging their duties, during the field works. Respondents were asked to provide information about their challenges faced by them; they mentioned that around 60% of ASHA (96) found problems in fulfilling their roles/duties during fieldwork, social stigma was identified as the main problem for 43% of ASHA. Around 20% of ASHA (30) reported that difficulties in traveling a long distance and heavy load of work are hindering factors. Few find workload is too large and lack administrative support from PHC for various reasons. Few (10%) did not inform about the challenges they face during work. Most of the ASHAs joined for financial gain (60%) which include supporting family, helping to meet family expenses, and supporting themselves as income was less in ASHA home. Around 40% of ASHAs joined because of the developed image and reputation of an ASHA in society. Around 20% of ASHAs didn’t want to join but due to social pressure caused by family, especially husband they had no choice but to join. Only 7% of them stated that they wanted to get a permanent job in the health sector.

    Apoorva Pathak
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    @apoorva
    #32149
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    ASHA full form stands for accredited social health activist. These are local women who are trained in health education and how to promote health knowledge in their community. Their many problems which ASHA worker face during their job period. As they are ill-equipped they not able to administer problems in a better way, lack of resources, the amount of hard work they do and the salaries they get is not satisfactory because they lose the enthusiasm to do good things in society and also leads to failure of targets given.

    During this pandemic also ASHA worker was doing their work but they not efficient in their work as they are not provided with proper safety gears which can protect them from this virus. These women are often ill-treated in their community males of the village try to avoid them and tease them. There are many cases of rape of Asha workers in the rural area. These workers are not given proper protection. During pandemic central government has included them in the frontline worker section as they have active participation in eliminating this virus and also make them administer vaccination jab early. But still, there are many difficulties they have to face when they go out for work and make aware people of the rural area about health and sanitation.

    In some backward rural area, it is considered that these ASHA workers are destroying their religious ethic and they are not allowed to enter the village. They are beaten up and abused. To make a more powerful health system in our country we need to focus on these primary health care workers who are doing a great job. They walk miles and miles to educate people about health. They should be given proper care and financial support to encourage them and make health a priority in our country.

    DISHA SAPKALE
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    @42disha
    #32163
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    ASHA (Accredited Social Health Activist) was launched in 2005 it’s a community Health worker by ministry of health and family welfare. It is generally grass root level worker means villages level workers they has colour code purple saree. And one Asha will cater to 1000 population. Most of the Asha workers are women and to work at Asha women should has permanent resident of the village and education up to 10th class. They should have good communication skills and leadership qualities. Women’s are trained with their work they first has to do inquiries about pregnant women and if their is no one in home to understand such think they explains them. 60% workers of Asha joined to support their family financial. 40% workers after joining Asha they has reputed image of workers because of which they get motivated and became inspirational. 20% of workers are don’t wish to join but due to family pressure and financial problems they joined Asha. 7% of workers has joined to be permanent employees in future. And afterwards Asha was facing biggest problem of payment and incentives for employees and in that also they have to work with coordination between health and medical department. Most of the women are working at Asha because of financial problems but they are not getting enough of payment and not getting time with family because of the work load is increasing day by day. And due to not getting payment as per the work many of workers was thinking not to join at Asha. AWW (Anganwadi workers) support will make Asha work performance better than before. But both the departments want their work on time. So almost half of the workers got support for medical officer at PHC. All the workers at Asha was accepted from panchayat to support and help them for encouraging people to have cleanliness, hygiene, sanitation and it will happen when people will construct toilet in their homes. Asha mostly faced challenges due to lack of burden towards work through which it affect on giving incentives and in that also poor transport these problems commonly faced at Asha field work.

    PALAK KASHIV
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    @palak
    #32173
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    ASHA (Accredited Social Health Activist) community was launched by sir Manmohan Singh by the ministry of health and family welfare government of India the idea behind forming this community was for the rural women who are widowed, divorced, and married women who lie in the age group of 25-45 years. Their responsibilities are community mobilizations and health planning work, creating awareness among people for symptoms of breastfeeding, skill birth of baby, survey health and related data according to what ministry says, also informing the people about new diseases and preventions method. But there is one condition that women should have basic knowledge till 10 and 12 class. And the color of women’s uniform is pink saree, this is a nice step taken by the ministry for forming this community but workers in ASHA has to still face challenges such as ASHA workers should be trained but they do not get effective training the way should day serve, the biggest the difficulty for ASHA worker their only source of earning through this only but many women have complaints is they do not get salary nearly 5-6 months to run their house is challenging for them. Some rural people still think why should we pay to the hospital the delivery charges when we can deliver the baby at home. Some Asha workers get less income due to their village is small and workers who have big villages they large income. There should be an equal division of income for all the workers. Also, poor infrastructure and health care facilities need improvement because it is a risk for ASHA workers and the health of people. The ASHA worker has a lot of work to do but they are able to perform all the task because of shorter villages and landmarks in result they get less income. The health care ministry needs to listen to the ASHA worker’s challenges and need to constructive steps regarding that.

    Mayuravarshini Mohana
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    @mayura
    #32549
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    Accredited Social Health Activists or ASHAs as popularly called are community health workers who are integral to India’s National Rural Health Mission rolled out in 2005. The aim of this project was to achieve ‘an ASHA in every village’. ASHAs are females chosen from within a locality, who are then trained towards promoting overall health and hygiene in their village. It is estimated that each ASHA looks after nearly a thousand families in her assigned unit. They are honorary volunteers who are entitled to monetary compensation.

    The primary responsibility of an ASHA is micro-level care-giving. Her role includes bridging the gap between villagers and health services, raising awareness about health schemes and entitlements especially among the poor and the marginalised and promoting hygienic practices. It is every ASHA’s responsibility to mobilise collective action towards wellness. They are the interface of their assigned unit to our country’s health care system. ASHAs are also the localised facilitators of any health scheme introduced by governing bodies. They even facilitate vaccination, immunisation, access to contraceptive methods and child care programmes.

    The primary challenge faced by many ASHAs today is untimely payment and inadequate wages. To worsen things, they suffer a pay cut if they take more than 10 days off. At present they receive RS 75 for immunisation, Rs.300 for escorting women to hospitals for child birth and Rs.1000 over the period of successful TB vaccination. During the Covid-19 pandemic, they are offered an additional Rs.1000. The roles of ASHAs have become manifold since the onset of the pandemic. Now they are additionally charged with screening, vaccination and spreading awareness of preventive measures such as masking and social distancing. They form an integral part of the frontline force whose tireless efforts and contribution are not appropriately compensated.

    The absence of a proper transport system makes travelling difficult. ASHAs have to travel long distances to discharge their regular duties and the inconvenience causes wastage of time and human effort. ASHAs work only part-time and the allocation of duties should not impinge on their regular livelihood. But such inconveniences as improper infrastructure and uncooperative Panchayat bodies protract their volunteer hours to nearly full time.

    It is irrefutable that ASHAs form the backbone of our rural health system. With the second wave of the pandemic ravaging rural India, these health workers risk their life as they battle Covid-19 on behalf of the government. They deserve much more than the current wages received. Moreover, the Code on Social Security, 2020 and The Code on Wages have failed to include ASHAs, denying them a guaranteed minimum wage. It is disheartening that these front line warriors, despite their mammoth contribution in the war against corona, are not recognised and duly compensated.

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