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Making home healthcare jobs more aspirational for women

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Latha Rao, Head-Human Resources, Nightingales Home Health Services highlights the role of home healthcare

Home healthcare involves providing medical services at home, such as elderly healthcare management, post-hospitalization care, physiotherapy at home, and more. For various reasons, home healthcare is slowly becoming a norm among the stakeholders in the Indian healthcare industry. Ever since the inception of the COVID-19 pandemic in late 2019 and early 2020, the requirement for home healthcare has seen a significant surge. The Indian home healthcare sector is expected to grow by 19 per cent yearly. Currently, the market value of home healthcare has reached up to $5 billion. Furthermore, as per  RedSeer analysis, the figure will continue to increase and reach the barrier of $10 million by 2025.

Moreover, if home healthcare continues to grow simultaneously with the Indian healthcare industry as a whole, the new market value can go beyond $11 billion. This would showcase an aggressive growth where the Indian home healthcare market would grow at least 2 per cent faster than the overall Indian healthcare industry. This can take the market value further, up to $13 billion by 2025. This provides the scope to generate over 66,000 employment opportunities for aspiring healthcare attendants. Other than that, the growth in the Indian home healthcare market can create socially acceptable and well-paying jobs for women by leveraging the capabilities of women as better caregivers.

Home healthcare and women’s participation

In India, unsuitable jobs and prohibitive social norms continue to restrict the participation of women in the  workforce.

FSG’s analysis of NSSO/PLFS data for 2004-05 and 2017-18 shows that in the past 14 years, over 45 per cent of women left their job compared to a mere 12 percent of men. As per the 2021 World Economic Forum report, India ranks 151 amongst 156 countries in women’s ‘Economic Participation and Opportunity’

As per FSG’s secondary research, on an average, there are approximately 10,000 nurses employed by various home healthcare companies in India, and at least 50 per cent of them are women. Home healthcare professionals can be divided into speech therapists, caregivers, nurses, physiotherapists, and likewise, offering a wide range of services requiring experience and specialised training.

Nevertheless, even with increased exposure to education, vocational degrees, and well-paid job opportunities, women from rural areas and Tier 2 towns find it challenging to take up home healthcare jobs. Some common challenges that women face while looking for a job in home healthcare or during their employment include,

  • Work fatigue
  • Occupational safety conditions
  • Lack of confidence
  • No social life
  • Dignity of work
  • Stability
  • Fair wages

With the increased demand for home healthcare professionals amidst the pandemic, professional home healthcare companies must take newer initiatives to make home healthcare more aspirational for women as a career option. Here are a few ways

Educating patients and their families: Healthcare companies must educate their patients about the roles and responsibilities that their caregivers should perform. In addition, they can even conduct awareness sessions among both patients and their families to educate them in providing a respectful environment for their caregivers.

Consistent learning of healthcare workers: Home healthcare companies should engage in providing regular upskilling and training programs to their women workers. This would help them in handling their patients in a more independent and better way. Moreover, it would provide hands-on experience to the workers, gearing them for their job and making them feel confident. Once the workers gain more and more experience, they can move forward with specialised career paths in the home healthcare industry.

Predefined protocols: Employers can determine predefined protocols that they have to follow before assigning a female caregiver to a patient strictly. This can include:

    • Supervisors can conduct site visits before assigning a female caregiver to ensure their safety. For instance, when a patient’s household includes other females, too, it would make the healthcare worker feel more comfortable during their course of work.
    • To deal with any safety concerns, caregivers can connect to emergency services.
    • Caregivers should be educated about unsafe and safe environments. They should also be made aware of immediate actions that they can take during emergencies.

Fair and Equal compensation: Providing fair and equal compensation along with other benefits such as PF, Gratuity and ESI can be a great value add for home healthcare professionals.

In addition to all the above, giving them an opportunity to work with professional home care players like us and giving them an opportunity to work in metro and upcoming non-metro cities will give them better exposure for future opportunities. If one is willing to put in time and effort, there are a number of good opportunities available in home healthcare. In comparison to other areas of healthcare, it’s much easier to get a job in home healthcare if one has the right qualification and skill set. Additionally, the working environment is more comfortable and less stressful when compared to a hospital setup.

With the surge in the home healthcare industry, there is an increased demand for qualified and highly skilled home care professionals. As 50 per cent of the home healthcare professionals are women, it only makes sense that organizations are implementing appropriate and practical solutions that would improve their daily working conditions and make the home healthcare industry more aspirational for women.

 

 

 

 

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