Thread by @PSainath_org

1/6. International Women’s Day: remember this group for whom ‘there is always a lockdown.’ Over 80 per cent of Indian nurses are women. A brilliant story in PARI by Kavitha Muralidharan on nurses in Tamil Nadu. Story link at end of thread.
#WomensDay #healthworkers #COVID19

2/6. Nurses working in Covid-19 wards do so at very high risk. Thousands have contracted the virus in India these past 11 months, and several have died – but data on healthcare worker deaths from Covid-19 are notoriously unreliable.
#WomensDay #healthworkers #COVID19

3/6. Some nurses, themselves lactating mothers, have worked in wards taking care of pregnant mothers – and their babies – down with Covid-19. This means shutting themselves off from their own, often less than year-old children for long periods.
#WomensDay #healthworkers #COVID19

4/6. On returning from quarantine after each stint, many face neighbours who fear them as potential virus carriers. Some nurses have had to vacate homes and shift elsewhere. As one of them says: ‘the stigma is tougher to handle than the virus.’
#WomensDay #healthworkers #COVID19

5/6. Nurses in non-Covid wards also run high risks – many do not get high quality personal protective equipment that those in the Covid wards are entitled to. There are close to 2.7 million nurses (including auxiliary nurse midwives) in India.
#WomensDay #healthworkers #COVID19

6/6. Nurses working 30 years earn little more than an entry-level bank clerk does. Many of these real frontline warriors are Dalits embracing the profession driven by idealism, inspired by Ambedkar, and seeking dignity.
#WomensDay #healthworkers #COVID19
ruralindiaonline.org/en/articles/fo…