A model to protect India’s urban poor
The third wave of the Covid-19 pandemic brings into focus yet again the long road ahead before things get back to normal. Many areas remain where medical and social aid has not been optimum, especially for the urban poor. In this context, the incredible coordinated community response in some parts of Bengaluru that house the city’s urban poor should be adopted as a template for other metros and towns. The unique strength of this effort has been the tremendous work put in by women workers.
The Bengaluru Covid Response has brought together various stakeholders including the Azim Premji Foundation (APF) and civil society organisation (CSO) partners such as ActionAid, Centre for Advocacy and Research (CFAR), Mercy Mission, along with the state health department and the Bengaluru Bruhat Mahanagara Palike. In total, there are 23 non-governmental organisation (NGO) partners. This integrated response knits together the distinct but interrelated processes in a seamless continuum.
It was this integration that ensured a rapid response intervention was framed to protect the most vulnerable groups and communities living in the slums of Bengaluru — one million people in 600 slums — from contracting the virus and, if they did, from then transmitting it. This includes spreading authentic information, conducting 100% household surveys, providing support to outreach workers, strengthening the public health systems and teams, setting up testing camps close to the slums, installing machines to expedite testing, enforcing quarantine strictly, improving sanitisation, managing affected persons, and stopping acts of stigma and discrimination.
Hyma Vadlami, head of the Azim Premji Foundation’s work in the slums of Bengaluru says, “The pandemic exposed the stark reality of the invisibilisation of the urban poor, no one knew how many were there, but we did know that public health systems were so sparse that they did not have easy access to them. We also picked up the thread of movement of migrants as they came and left the city. Some of them got their first vaccine in their native states, and some did not have the necessary documentation for the second dose. We were able to deal with these problems effectively.”
Taking this forward, Akhila Sivadas, executive director of CFAR says, “Together we are ensuring that help-desk teams acting as the front-end of the operation are supported by effective and 24x7 backend help in terms of protection kits, training, data-based planning, quality and timely support from the health system, and last but not the least, daily and weekly reviews of what more support the community and the teams on the ground need.”
Women help-desk workers in the initiative like Shobhana and Bharathi say that among the urban poor, many had not been vaccinated at all or had only got one jab. The reasons were: Chronic illness; fear; mental health problems or addictions; lack of awareness of the importance of the vaccine in ending the pandemic; and hesitancy from pregnant mothers. They just needed a push, the women workers say.
The Omicron wave cannot be taken lightly. People have also become complacent. The involvement of the community in this women-driven initiative has made all the difference and brought into focus the problems that the urban poor face in accessing health care. This holds out hope that this wave can be overcome by community efforts, so that we emerge from this in better shape than from the last two waves.