Women health workers show potential for communist health care
BENGALURU (India), September 29— Monsoon rains flooded this city of thirteen million for almost two weeks. Electricity, internet, roads, and hospitals were quickly restored in the affluent areas, but the working class is still reeling from the lack of basic services. Hundreds of thousands are sick, and some dying, from gastrointestinal diseases and unsanitary water.
Garment workers’ neighborhoods are the worst affected. The ICWP collective waded through shoulder-deep water to distribute leaflets denouncing the murderous capitalist system, to be replaced with communism.
Only under communism can the working class take care of each other. Without money and the bloodsucking capitalists, workers will distribute our resources according to need. Rents, slumlords, skyrocketing hospital bills, and for-profit education will be gone.
As we build a new foundation based on communist collectivity, we will also end the caste system and religious hatred the bosses push on us because they are the only ones who benefit from it.
Women workers from Accredited Social Health Activists (ASHA) came to help our neighborhood of garment workers. ASHA means “hope” in Hindi. Over four million ASHA and other workers have been trained to give vaccines and collect samples of TB and other diseases. They deliver babies, providing care to mothers before and after birth. They supply family planning and sanitation in slums and rural areas. Most of these primary-care providers are married women with less than 10th-grade education.
ASHA workers are on-call day and night for deliveries or urgent care. These super-exploited women get between Rs. 2000 to Rs 8000 (US$25 to $100) a month. They get only Rs. 640 (US$8) for a normal delivery that requires them to be with the mother and child for at least four days.
ICWP members welcomed a dozen ASHA women who came to us. Right away, we talked to them about communism and how health workers like them will provide care when capitalists no longer shackle them. All were full of anger and hatred for the bosses. They told us proudly that Covid has diminished in India because they reached out to every village and vaccinated the workers even while their family members were dying.
They told us about people infected with TB who smell so bad that nobody goes near them. The ASHA worker cares for them, takes samples, and gives them medicine and hope.
“When we get a phone call at midnight that a woman is in labour, we rush out of the door,” said one worker. “We leave behind our family and our small children. When we meet pregnant women, we are with them every second.
“We establish a tremendous bond with them. Four days later, when we go, we feel like we are leaving behind family. We remember every woman who has given birth. We never forget them. And the bosses treat us like dirt. We have not gotten any pay raise since 2016.”
Another worker described how women feel about going to hospitals for delivery. “We don’t trust those doctors,” she said. “They read and learn from books. If women enter hospital, they will pay for it their whole life.
“We learn from our experience,” she continued. “Women feel comfortable with us right away. They are all very poor, just like us. Many times, we end up giving them money even though we don’t have any.” So many women told us that they have stayed connected with these women for over sixteen years.
The ASHA workers’ experience shows that the main aspect of health care is not “expertise” but commitment to the health of the masses. Workers like them will help develop our understanding and practice of communist health care.
We spent hours talking about the criminal atrocities of the capitalists who profit from the labor of these workers. Every ASHA worker agreed that things must change. However, many thought that if we fight for more wages, it will help improve their conditions.
An ICWP member said, “The bosses may give more money, but inflation will eat away any gain we make. We will always be wage slaves. We invite you to join our party that wants to end wage slavery.”
The battle to win these workers has just begun. They have tremendous empathy for the workers they serve. They have built incredible long-term relationships with women and fought for life-saving vaccines and sanitation.
We gave each one copies of our leaflet and Red Flag. We know that they will spread our ideas. And just as they do with the women they help, we will keep in constant contact with them with an outlook to form communist collectives.