Accredited social health activists are well known for providing healthcare in rural India. However, this essential part of the workforce has long gone unacknowledged, and the situation has become worse in the pandemic, reports Sanket Jain When Netradipa Patil met 9 month old Riya (not her real name) she was perplexed. “Her vaccination card was half empty,” she remembers. Under India’s universal immunisation programme, Riya should have received at least 10 doses of multiple vaccines by then. Riya was the fourth girl child in the family, something that gave a clue for Patil to reach the truth. “The family wanted a male child. The bias was so strong that they wouldn’t even get her vaccinated.” Patil kept Riya’s vaccination card for the next five years and ensured all the doses were administered on time. Today, seven years later, Riya is not just in better health but goes to school and is treated with respect. “No child should be left unvaccinated. That’s what we strive for,” she says. Patil is an accredited social health activist (ASHA), part of an all-female group of low paid community health workers who have become an essential part of India’s rural healthcare workforce. There are over a million of these all-female health workers nationwide. Patil represents around 3000 of them as the head of the ASHA union in Kolhapur, a city in the western state of Maharashtra, India’s second most populous state and the one with the highest number of covid-19 infections in the country. ASHAs were first appointed in 2006 to fill the gaps in public healthcare in 18 high profile states. The government’s 2006 National Rural Health Mission—a plan to improve access to and quality of care in rural areas—declared that there should be one ASHA for every 1000 citizens, and the service expanded …

中文翻译：

---

印度未经承认的无偿女性卫生工作者大军

经认可的社会健康活动家以在印度农村提供医疗保健服务而闻名。然而，劳动力的这一重要组成部分长期以来一直未被承认，并且在大流行中情况变得更糟，Sanket Jain 报告说，当 Netradipa Patil 遇到 9 个月大的 Riya（化名）时，她感到很困惑。“她的疫苗接种卡有一半是空的，”她回忆道。根据印度的全民免疫计划，届时 Riya 应该已经接种了至少 10 剂多种疫苗。Riya 是家里的第四个女孩，这为 Patil 提供了了解真相的线索。“这个家庭想要一个男孩。这种偏见是如此强烈，以至于他们甚至都不会给她接种疫苗。” 在接下来的五年里，帕蒂尔保留了 Riya 的疫苗接种卡，并确保按时接种所有疫苗。七年后的今天，Riya 不仅身体健康，而且上学并受到尊重。“不应该让孩子没有接种疫苗。这就是我们努力的目标，”她说。Patil 是一位获得认可的社会健康活动家 (ASHA)，她是全女性低薪社区卫生工作者团体的一员，她们已成为印度农村医疗保健劳动力的重要组成部分。全国有超过一百万的全女性卫生工作者。帕蒂尔代表其中大约 3000 人作为 ASHA 联盟的负责人，科尔哈布尔是印度西部马哈拉施特拉邦的一个城市，马哈拉施特拉邦是印度人口第二多的州，也是该国 COVID-19 感染人数最多的州。ASHA 于 2006 年首次被任命，以填补 18 个备受瞩目的州在公共医疗保健方面的空白。