Notes from the PARI Library: Women’s Health

Reports in the PARI Library support and supplement our coverage as an online journal and archive of the everyday lives of everyday people. This Library Bulletin has reports from the PARI Health Archive which currently houses 256 documents by the government, independent organisations, and UN agencies. The focus ranges from global to national issues, or themes from specific regions of the countryIn Borotika, Jharkhand, a woman experiencing a complicated pregnancy may end up having to cross the border into Odisha just to see a doctor.She is not alone – if you are a woman living in rural India, the chances of seeing a gynaecologist or even a surgeon are particularly bleak. Community Health Centres (CHCs) here have a shortfall of 74.2 per cent in obstetricians and gynaecologists required in the existing infrastructure.If you are a young mother with a sick child, accessing a paediatrician in a CHC may take a while as roughly 80 per cent of the required posts for them as well as for physicians are yet to be filled.We know all this and more from the Rural Health Statistics 2021-22. These and other important reports, research papers and hard data, laws and conventions are available in the PARI Health Archive and serve as crucial vantage points to illustrate and better understand the state of women’s health in India.This section spotlights the precarious nature of women’s health, especially in rural India. From reproductive health to sexual violence, mental health to the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, the PARI Health Archive covers several aspects of women’s health – bolstering PARI’s mandate of covering ‘the everyday lives of everyday people’.The PARI Health Archive, a subsection of the PARI Library , houses 256 documents, including reports by the government, independent organisations, and UN agencies. The focus ranges from global to national issues, or themes from specific regions of the country.“He told me I had a calcium and iron problem [deficiency] and I should never sit on the floor,” says Tanuja, a beedi worker in Murshidabad district of West Bengal.“We still have Adivasi women who come with practically no blood – 2 grams per decilitre of haemoglobin! It could be lower, but we can’t measure that,” says Dr. Shylaja at the Adivasi hospital in the Nilgiris.Across the country, anaemia among women has worsened since 2015-16, according to the latest National Family Health Survey (NFHS-5 2019-21)...