A few women from the neighbourhood have joined us by now, among them 32-year-old Sandhya, who has been working in this basti for over five years as a member of the Manvadhikar Jan Nigrani Samiti, a human rights group. Sandhya begins by talking about the widespread problem of anaemia. Though the 2015-16 National Family Health Survey-4 ( NFHS-4 ) notes that 52 per cent of women in Uttar Pradesh may be anaemic, in Aneai, she says, 100 per cent of them suffer from moderate or acute anaemia.
“We recently did poshan- mapping [a nutrition assessment] of all the women in this village,” Sandhya adds, “and found that not even one of them has haemoglobin above 10 gm/dL. Every single one of them is anaemic. Besides this, leukorrhea and calcium deficiency are other common problems among the women.”
These health issues and deficiencies are accompanied by a prevailing mistrust in the public healthcare system, where they are called names and receive very poor attention. So unless it is an emergency, the women won’t go to the hospital. “My first five deliveries happened at home itself. Then the ASHA [Accredited Social Health Activist] started taking me to the hospital,” Sudama says, about her fear of clinics.
“Doctors do discriminate when it comes to us. But that is not new, the real challenge begins at home itself,” says 47-year-old Durgamati Adivasi, a neighbour. “We are looked down upon by the sarkar , doctors, and our men alike. They [the men] only know how to indulge in the pleasures of the flesh, not the aftermath. The only responsibility they think that they have is of feeding the family. Rest all is meant for us women,” adds Durgamati, a note of agitation creeping into her voice.
https://ruralindiaonline.org/en/articles/in-up-male-nasbandi---not-even-an-option/
#PVCHR #Helath #Musahar
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