Come March 4, nearly three lakh women garment workers in the city will be given a chikki (sweet made of groundnut and jaggery) and a de-worming tablet after a fingerprick test for anaemia at their workplace.
With a study finding over 60 per cent of garment workers in Bengaluru to be anaemic, the State Labour Department is set to start an intensive anaemia screening and treatment programme for them.
The department, which has set up six teams comprising medical officers to visit garment factories in the city and screen and recommend treatment for workers, has collaborated with the Asian Research and Training Institute for Skill Transfer (ARTIST) to tackle the issue of anaemia at the micro level.
P.B. Ramamurthy, Additional Chief Secretary, Labour Department, told The Hindu that garment workers, who are poorly paid, hardly get to eat nutritious food. “During a random survey last year, it was found that more than 60 per cent of the 65,000 women workers screened were anaemic. Following the survey, we administered 14.4 lakh iron tablets through Employees State Insurance (ESI) hospitals. The workers were made to take the tablets in the presence of safety officers in their factories after lunch,” he explained.
However, the issue was not followed up after that. The current screening programme is in continuation of last year’s survey, Mr. Ramamurthy said, adding that the plan is to extend the programme across the State.
Surendra V.H.H., Joint Director of Factories (Medical), Department of Factories, Boilers, Industrial Safety and Health, said that in the first phase, all three lakh women workers of around 270 garment factories in Bengaluru Urban would undergone the fingerprick test at their workplace.
Hema Divakar, who heads ARTIST and also represents Federation of Obstetric and Gynaecological Societies of India (FOGSI) at the International Federation of Gynaecology and Obstetrics (FIGO), said the long-term plan is to create an anaemia-free healthy female working population. The programme that will go on for 100 days from March 4, will involve screening of workers for anaemia by teams at their workplace. ARTIST will provide the fingerprick test equipment, ‘Hemocue’ that can be carried to the work point of each worker.
A Pune-based pharma manufacturer from whom ARTIST is procuring over 2.5 lakh testing strips has also agreed to transport an equal amount of chikki for this programme. “ Chikki distribution is symbolic of iron supplement that the anaemic women are supposed to take,” she said. “We are also preparing a 30-second animation video on anaemia and its causes, which will be sent to the workers on their mobile phones,” she said, adding that the programme will be reviewed after six months.
