JOIN USThe pandemic and Bengaluru’s poor performance in tracing the contacts of Covid-19 patients initially seems to have made the BBMP realise the importance of ASHA activists — grassroot health workers. Aimed at strengthening the public health system across Bengaluru, the civic body will now avail services of 1,322 ASHA activists.
Currently, a total of 42,524 Accredited Social Health Activist (ASHA) are working in both rural and urban parts of Karnataka, with a ratio of one ASHA worker for every 1,000 population. Interestingly, in Bengaluru and other urban areas, they were confined to work only in slums or areas inhabited by those in the economically weaker section.
However, the state government, realising the importance of these workers and their role in containing the spread of epidemic diseases and strengthening the grassroot health surveillance system, has now ordered the appointment of 1,786 ASHA workers, of which as many as 1,322 will be attached with the Palike.
BBMP Commissioner N Manjunatha Prasad said: “The BBMP has about 1,229 workers sanctioned under the National Urban Health Mission. With the addition of the new recruits, the city will have one ASHA worker for every 5,000 population.”
As a result, Bengaluru, with a population of about 1,26,56,029 people, will have 2,551 workers.
Will help in 2020-21 Census
The civic body is also mulling to deploy the ASHA workers to carry out the 2020-21 Census.
Shortage of ASHA workers, in the initial days of the pandemic, was strongly felt in urban areas, especially while tracing the primary and secondary contacts of Covid patients and carrying out surveillance tasks to identify SARI and ILI cases through door-to-door surveys.
While ASHA workers had carried out similar works in rural areas effectively and helped contain the spread of Covid-19, their absence in urban areas had forced the state to rope in other government employees.