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‘Covid crisis pushed us to the very limit’, says the woman who took the pandemic head on
Mother to a seven-year-old girl , Sahoo spent 2020 fighting the twin battles of undernutrition and the virus, all at a paltry monthly salary of Rs 7,500.
In her maroon and yellow salwar kameez, Laxmipriya Sahoo is an unlikely fighter against the Covid pandemic. The 36-year-old from Bhubaneswar’s Subas Nagar slum in Dumuduma area is one of the state’s 150,000 anganwadi workers manning the 72,000-odd anganwadi centres that function as the nodes of healthcare and education for the poor.
Mother to a seven-year-old girl , Sahoo spent 2020 fighting the twin battles of undernutrition and the virus, all at a paltry monthly salary of Rs 7,500.
In normal times, Sahoo and her colleagues have their hands full. They distribute eggs to families, take a ration of Chhatua(a powder of roasted Bengal gram, wheat, groundnut and sugar), suji halwa, maize halwa, ragi halwa, jaggery laddoo and besan laddoo to the newborn, those between 3 and 6, and pregnant and lactating women.
After March, Sahoo and others were asked to join a new battle: Against Covid-19. “While the work at anganwadi centre was challenging enough, Covid-19 pushed us to the limit,” she said.
With anganwadi centres shut in the nationwide lockdown from March 25, Sahoo had to go to the houses of children and pregnant mothers to distribute ration and eggs. “Babies were still being born, pregnant women needed regular health check-ups, and new mothers needed to be supported with breastfeeding and feeding young children,” added Sahoo, who works as an anganwadi worker in Ward No 65 of Dumuduma area under Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation.
As the months went by, the workload piled up as they were designated Covid warriors and asked to supervise quarantine centres and containment zones.
Earlier, work at the anganwadi centre used to finish by 3 pm, leaving Sahoo enough time to look after her small family. But once the pandemic started, she could couldn’t take a break even as her family income dwindled after her husband’s betel shop shut during the 68-day national lockdown.
“After the Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation started containment of areas where more and more Covid cases were reported, I had to visit each of the houses in my area to check on suspect cases. I had to inform the BMC about any person entering the area from outside, meet that person and advise them to stay in quarantine for 14 days. This did not go well most of the time as people fought with me,” said Sahoo.
Sahoo’s work was anything but smooth. In March, soon after she was deployed on Covid-19 duty, a 26-year-old man from her area tested positive for the virus. As a frontline worker, she was supposed to locate him and help BMC officials admit him to hospital. But the man had intentionally misrepresented his address and age. Sahoo was further alarmed after she found the man participated in a community feast after developing Covid-19 symptoms.
The address he provided turned out to be an abandoned site, but when Sahoo traced his real home and reached there to get the family quarantined, they fought with her and accused her of misappropriating government money. Luckily, no one from his family tested positive, though seven of his friends developed symptoms and had to be hospitalised.
Sahoo said she was lucky compared to other anganwadi workers, such as Rama Sundari Panda in Jajpur district, who was thrashed when he attempted to put some people under quarantine.
Sahoo’s other challenge was ensuring a regular supply of provisions in a local containment zone for 14 days and also look after the quarantine centre. Especially sticky was ensuring people didn’t jump quarantine.
“Many people jumped quarantine centre for which we had to lodge complain before the police. Many times, the stickers that we put up in front of the house of Covid positive patients were torn . We had another problem in distribution of rice and pulses that was announced for people during lockdown. People who had ration cards got the rice and pulses. But those who did not have cards verbally abused me accusing me of gobbling up their share of rice and dal,” said Sahoo.
In the middle of this crushing schedule, she had to visit the houses of 72 children to train their mothers on starting pre-formal education and carrying on the vaccination drive.
Sahoo alleged that despite the dedication and commitment, they did not get masks and sanitisers regularly. “We had to buy our own masks and sanitisers. In Odisha, 18 anganwadi workers died while doing Covid duty…I had my husband, daughter and mother at home and would feel scared when I returned home after doing Covid duty,” said Sahoo.