Union Minister of State for Petroleum and Tourism Suresh Gopi visits the protesting ASHAs near the Secretariat in Thiruvananthapuram on Saturday, expressing solidarity with them.
| Photo Credit: S. Mahinsha
Accredited Social Health Activists (ASHAs) of the Health department, whose agitation demanding better remuneration for the long hours of work they were putting in entered day 20, marched to the office of the National Health Mission (NHM) on Saturday.
The march was in response to an order issued by the NHM on Friday that some 1,500 health volunteers be newly selected and trained at the ward-level to ensure effective delivery of health services.
The order, closely following another order a couple of days ago, which asked striking ASHAs to rejoin duty immediately and asking district medical officers to make alternative arrangements for delivering services wherever ASHAs were not available, had not gone well with the women health workers .
Burns copy of order
ASHAs, who marched to the NHM office, burned a copy of the NHM order and said that such intimidation was uncalled for. They said that the agitation for fair wages carried on by them was not something that any government could afford to be dismissive about, because such was the service they were rendering at the grassroots.
They said that the support from the civil society was an indication of how loudly the voice of ASHAs were being heard.
NHM officials said that they usually recruited new people as and when ASHAs left job or vacancies arose, but that the total strength of 26,125 would not be exceeded.
ASHAs have already announced that they will be marching to the State Legislative Assembly on Monday, when the Session reconvenes after a short break.
On Saturday, Union Minister of State for Petroleum and Tourism Suresh Gopi was the prominent visitor to the agitation venue. Mr. Gopi, who interacted with the women, said that he fully empathised with the cause of ASHAs and that he would ensure that their insecure and vulnerable state would be taken up with the Prime Minister.
He said that none should try to undermine the agitation by the women for fair wages. ASHA was conceived as a Central scheme with clear guidelines and if these guidelines needed to be changed, he would be happy to take it up with the Prime Minister and the Union Health Minister.
At national level
The voice of ASHAs are beginning to reverberate at the national level , with politicians like Shashi Tharoor, the Thiruvananthapuram MP, going on the X platform to hail ASHAs as the “unknown heroes” of the health system and to denounce the Kerala government for giving up on the very people who were holding up the health system. Mr. Tharoor had visited the agitating ASHAs two days ago, a visit he termed was an emotional one.
Earlier ASHAs condemned the State government’s attempt to shift the responsibility of their welfare on to the Centre by claiming that it was the Centre which had to recognise them as a regular workforce.
ASHAs pointed out that even though ASHA was conceived as a Central scheme in 2005, ASHAs in Kerala were working for the State’s health system.
“We are working 12 to 14 hours a day for Kerala’s health system, putting in more hours than the health system’s regular field workers. How can the State ignore our services at the grassroots and claim that it is the duty of the Centre to make us regular workers and pay us minimum wages?,” they ask.
Published – March 01, 2025 09:07 pm IST