South Asian Community Health Workers Say Their Work is Work

Community health workers demand to be recognised as formal workers with pay and benefits to match. Credit: Zofeen T. EbrahimBy Zofeen EbrahimKARACHI, Oct 19 2023 (IPS) “Professionally, I am still where I was 23 years ago when I started working as a lady health worker (LHW),” said a disgruntled Yasmin Siddiq, 47, from Karachi. “I will probably retire in the same capacity, as a Grade 5 government servant, without any hope for upward mobility.” The idea behind the Lady Health Worker Programme (LHWP), the brainchild of Pakistan’s late prime minister Benazir Bhutto, began in 1994 with the purpose of “training women as community health workers (CHWs) to improve the dismal maternal and child health scores of the country and build a bridge between the village woman and the formal health sector,” said Dr Talat Rizvi, a public health physician with a vast experience in Maternal and Child Health with a particular focus on community-based projects and who designed the programme. Siddiqi’s day starts at 9 am, and she must go door-to-door, covering between 5 to 10 homes within the 1 km radius of her home. “Initially, my tasks included making married women (of reproductive age) aware of the benefits of family planning and informing and providing them assistance about contraceptives, ensuring they go for antenatal check-ups when pregnant and their tetanus shots. I had to keep an eye on under-five children of that family and get them vaccinated,” she said. Over the years,...
Source: IPS Inter Press Service - Health - Category: International Medicine & Public Health Authors: Tags: Asia-Pacific Editors' Choice Featured Gender Headlines Health Human Rights Inequality TerraViva United Nations Women's Health IPS UN Bureau IPS UN Bureau Report Pakistan South Asia Source Type: news