Phagni Majhi (40) works as an ASHA in Kodobhata hamlet of Patdarha plateau. She covers two other hamlets of the tribal pocket located over five km apart to provide healthcare to pregnant women.
“I do not have any problem in walking to these villages of my area even though I have to cross dense forest for ‘home visit’ to check health status of pregnant women and distribute medicines to them. But the difficulties come when I approach them to go to the Community Health Centre (CHC) at Boden for delivery,” explains Phagni. In last two years, Phagni has been able to convince only one woman to go for institutional delivery. “I convinced her because she was my daughter-in-law,” she adds.
Patdarha plateau is located 2,800 feet above sea level. There are two villages with 12 small hamlets on the plateau situated wide apart. The Gram Panchayat headquarters Bhainsadani is located in the foot hills. “It takes four hours to walk down the hill to reach the Panchayat headquarters and one more hour of walking to the CHC at Boden for an able bodied person,” explains Phagni. “You think, what difficulty a pregnant woman must be facing to reach the CHC for health check up at critical stage of pregnancy or to give birth to child at the CHC,” she states adding that her daughter-in-law Tile Majhi took 11 hours to reach the CHC.
“We started at 6 am on a Monday morning and reached there at 5 pm,” she says. Tile gave birth to the child on Sunday evening. The health condition of the child was critical, thus she was shifted to the District Headquarters Hospital (DHH) at Nuapada. “She got better after a treatment of nine days but we had to spend around Rs7,000 to hire the vehicle for transportation and to pay for the cost of medicines,” she said. She disclosed that they had to pay Rs400 to the nurses for eating sweets.
There are nine ASHAs working in the plateau area, who have the same experience to share. They regularly pay “home visit” to conduct health check up to ensure that the pregnant ladies are taking iron tablets regularly. “Earlier, the women had a belief that the child inside the womb would get bigger, if they took medicine, but the situation now is changing,” says Nrupati Majhi, ASHA of Patdarha village. She covers two more hamlets in addition to the village Patdarha. She narrates how she had brought Sundari Majhi to the CHC when she fell ill in fourth month of her pregnancy. “You cannot carry a pregnant lady on a cot, while climbing down the steep hill, she has to walk,” explains Nrupati.
Rate of institutional delivery in the villages of Patdarha plateau is less than 10 per cent, although it is more than 80 per cent for Nuapada district. “Our deity ‘Duarsani’ saves our women and children; there is no death in last two years in our operational areas,” say the two ASHAs. What they get in returnIJ “Only Rs150 per institutional delivery,” answers Phagni. Why do you work thenIJ “We feel that, we are serving the village, like we serve our family members,” both of them answer.
Phagni was illiterate till she joined as ASHA and learnt alphabets after joining and can read and write now. Nrupati has studied up to class V in a village school. All other ASHAs of the plateau have also not crossed primary level of education. But their enthusiasm to work for their community is incredible. They are the real ASHA (hopes) of the helpless women of their villages, who have been deprived of basic health facilities even after 66 years of independence of the country.