NAME OF ASHA- Ms. Jyoti Dhurve

WORK LOCATION- Ghodawadi village, Ghodadongri block, Betul District

Ms. Jyoti is awarded for being the best ASHA in providing Home Based Young Child Care across Madhya Pradesh. This accolade was accorded by the Honourable Health Minister, ACS Health, Health Commissioner, and MD NHM at the event of ‘Muskurata Bachpan’ organized by National Health Mission Madhya Pradesh on 1/12/2022. Her eyes got filled with tears the moment she received such a big recognition because it is a journey full of struggles. It is a story of an ASHA who belongs to the scheduled tribe community, married at the age of 17, and has 3 daughters. It was very challenging for her to bring up 3 daughters, work in a village for social transformation and act as an agent of change for improving health services, but her golden heart, pure zeal to make a difference, and belief in performing duties and responsibilities without thinking about expectations and outcomes have circumvented all the obstacles. She does not want to let happen with others what happened to her, for ensuring this, she educates the community on the health consequences of child marriage, the benefits of family planning and gender equality, etc. For eradicating the communication barrier and bringing a sense of belongingness, she speaks with the community in the Gondi language.

Ms. Jyoti trained in the Home Based care for Young Children (HBYC) module in the year 2020. Since then, she started HBYC home visits of children of all ages from 3 to 15 months. For her, it was a continuum of the HBNC+ programme implemented with the support of NIPI till 12 months of ages. She said, in HBYC some more topics were taught such as the identification of developmental delay, counselling using MCP card. The HBYC module provided her with more wings in terms of dexterity. She conducts counselling of caregivers/ parents along with their children at home as well as at Anganwadi Centre periodically with Anganwadi workers reiterate the HBYC components such as age- appropriate vaccination, growth monitoring, use of IFA and ORS, assessment for developmental delay and malnutrition, etc.

In the last one year, she has conducted a total of 32 visits to 11 children under 3 to 15 months of age, of which 2 children were identified in the yellow category of malnutrition, they were provided with counselling on complementary feeding and retrieved to a green category within one year, one child was identified with pneumonia who was referred to the nearest facility. She receives a monthly incentive of Rs. 4,400 to Rs. 8,000, which keeps on fluctuating based on the activities performed and the area allocated. Out of the total monthly incentive she earns, Rs. 100 to 150 is attributed to HBYC visits. She covers a population of 559 and no newborn or young infant died in her area since she become ASHAs.

Some parents do not get agree to hospitalize their child because they are laborers and cannot afford to lose wages even a single day, so she convinces them by articulating the monetary and health benefits of admitting their child to NRC. Apart from this, she conducts home visits to every child in her area and counsels mothers/ caregivers on nutrition, play, and communication, adopting WASH practices and parenting tips, etc.

In Ghodawadi village, a child was 3 months old, and he was susceptible to pneumonia, his family had a myth that he was possessed by some evil spirit. ASHA counted his breath and intimated to the family that their child is suffering from pneumonia, but they denied to accept the health situation of their child, so she called ANM and somehow convinced the family to take the child to the hospital. They called 108 ambulance and get their child admitted to the hospital. After a few days, he recovered from pneumonia and his parents thanked ASHA for the same.

It is an incessant effort of Ms. Jyoti that she has earned such a prestigious honor and excelled in delivering healthcare services to the last mile, also owned scooty for overcoming the delay in reaching to a health facility. Whenever she comes across a sick child, she takes her on scooty to avoid any delay.

She is not just carrying out the work as listed in the roles of ASHA or ascribed under the guidelines of HBYC for the sake of implementing the programme, but also genuinely and honestly putting sincere efforts to make a difference, and this quality makes her the best.