{"id":126710,"date":"2021-05-11T17:48:49","date_gmt":"2021-05-11T15:48:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.erasmusmagazine.nl\/en\/?p=126710"},"modified":"2025-12-19T11:25:37","modified_gmt":"2025-12-19T10:25:37","slug":"corona-science-the-indian-government-needs-to-get-their-act-together-to-avoid-more-unnecessary-deaths","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.erasmusmagazine.nl\/en\/2021\/05\/11\/corona-science-the-indian-government-needs-to-get-their-act-together-to-avoid-more-unnecessary-deaths\/","title":{"rendered":"Corona science: \u2018The Indian government needs to get their act together, to avoid more unnecessary deaths\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

As a new wave of Covid-19 rages through India, community health workers feel abandoned by their own government. Sreerekha Sathi is assistant professor in Gender and Political Economy at the International Institute of Social Studies (ISS). Through her research, she is trying to understand the experiences of India\u2019s women welfare workers, especially public health workers, in relation to the state support for their work. \u201cThe burden on the health workers is insane. People in India are feeling helpless and that is a feeling that I share.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Why the specific focus on public health workers?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cFor some years now, I\u2019ve been studying the devaluation of women\u2019s work and the political economic processes this involves. The extremely valuable contribution of women in state welfare work in India has not been recognized nor does it get the dignity that it deserves, whereas these workers play an important part in what we call local development. <\/em>They work very closely with local people and also collect valuable information from local communities. People that are in powerful positions really don\u2019t know much about anything going on locally, unless for these women workers.\u201d<\/p>\n

How are you performing your research?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cThe current research is a pilot study, the main focus at the moment is on gathering available information about these workers in whatever limited ways during the covid times. Before the new wave hit the country, two graduate students had been helping me to collect stories and experiences of health workers mostly through phone conversations. India is a big country with over 1.4 billion people living in different states, with every state having their own experience with the pandemic. I\u2019m trying to focus on two locations which have extremely different stories to tell, namely Delhi and Kerala, which is the state that I\u2019m from.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\t

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