Committed for Social Change: Analysing the Role of Frontline Health Workers During Pandemic in Rural Odisha

The frontline health workers take health services directly to communities where access is either absent or often limited. The Aanganwadi workers and Accredited Social Health Activists (ASHA), among the most prominent frontline workers, act as essential to providing health facilities by bringing services to people’s doorsteps. They create awareness, provide nutritional support to children and mothers, promote universal immunisation, provide escort services for Reproductive and Child Health and so on. With the rise of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), ASHA and Anganwadi Workers (AWWs) have been expected to do supplemented work along with their regular duties. They are engaged in contact tracing, providing food supplements at the doorstep, screening the returning migrant workers, reporting suspected COVID-19 cases, doing door-to-door surveys and ensuring quarantine or isolation. However, they remain the least paid as Corona warriors and are exposed to Corona. The research found that AWWs and ASHAs are denied fundamental dignity and basic rights such as the right to recognition as workers, the right to the minimum salary and basic social security measures, which are the basic entitlement of the frontline workers in the State. The article critically analyses their role and rights during the pandemic.