Islamabad: Pakistan Women medical professionals are in the same boat as their Indian counterparts. The horrific rape and murder of a trainee doctor at the state-run R.G. Kar Medical College and Hospital in Kolkata has sparked outrage over the working conditions and safety of women medical personnel in India, but the same harrowing issues – leering and groping colleagues, staff, and patients, stalking, inappropriate comments, a lack of respect for their abilities, and a marked lack of dedicated amenities – affect their Pakistani counterparts as well.
An online survey conducted on Dawn.com and its Dawn Images supplement’s Instagram pages found that 47 percent of 988 female medical professionals reported feeling unsafe in both government and private hospitals. Of 932 respondents, 47.2 percent said they had experienced harassment while on duty, and 67 percent of 637 respondents said their hospital lacked a safe space to rest.
Dawn Images said in a report that the survey’s sample size isn’t large enough to draw any major conclusions, but it does support what many women medical professionals reported about what it’s like to work at hospitals in Pakistan.
That may go to explain why of 104,974 women medical graduates residing in Pakistan, 21,146, or around 20, are no longer part of the labour force, as per a report by Pakistan’s leading research institution, it said.
Threats to woman doctors and nurses do not come from patients and visitors but are sometimes internal, from within the hospital itself.
Study Connects Insulin Resistance to 31 Diseases That Leads to Premature Death in Women
A recent study conducted at a Karachi-based hospital found that nearly 70 per cent of female surgeons in Pakistan had experienced harassment in the workplace. Women doctors and nurses from all four provinces, both in rural areas and in urban centres, shared their stories of harassment, ranging from catcalls, comments about their bodies, inappropriate jokes, and being touched.
One woman doctor revealed how, in the middle of the night, she received a message from an unknown number “complimenting my looks”. More messages followed, detailing her exact location and what she wore. The messages became more frequent and she soon discovered they were sent by the head male nurse at the hospital. She did not file a complaint against him as she was told management favoured him.
Another doctor at a semi-private Lahore hospital reported that a resident doctor would make inappropriate comments to her. She initially ignored him, but soon, it escalated into deliberate bumps and brushes and created situations in which they were alone.
In addition to these challenges, women in the medical field are subjected to invasions of privacy, with some even being filmed while on duty. A female nurse said: “I’ve been inappropriately touched by patients and disrespected by doctors. At first, I assumed the touches by patients were accidental, but a senior later told me otherwise.”
“The most shocking moment was when I found inappropriate videos of myself on a 14-year-old boy’s phone.”
The lack of separate, secure amenities is another problem. A female resident doctor at the National Institute of Cardiovascular Diseases (NICVD) in Karachi revealed how the facility shared a common restroom between male and female doctors. “There is no separate room for women doctors to rest – only a single space shared by both genders. Male doctors and nurses often enter the room unannounced. Anyone resting in the room could be caught off guard,” she said.
One day, when a male colleague was about to enter the room unannounced, she asked him to knock before coming in. Offended by the request, he created a scene, accusing her of doubting his intentions. The situation escalated into an argument, drawing a crowd before consultants and the administration intervened.
Apart from restrooms, shared washrooms are a more concerning issue. A general surgeon from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa said that while they had a designated bathroom for women, male attendants often used it.
Beyond inadequate facilities, female doctors in Pakistan also face rampant gender discrimination. One Islamabad-based doctor revealed that families wouldn’t accept her conclusions even when she examined a patient and expressed a diagnosis until a male doctor confirmed them. “My gender takes precedence over my capabilities as a doctor. It’s just a cultural thing,” she said with a sigh.
“It doesn’t matter if you’re a doctor there to serve people if you’re wearing a burqa, a lab coat, socks with shoes, and a mask on your face; if you have a woman’s body, you will be leered at, touched, and made to feel uncomfortable,” a doctor who served in a Karachi hospital, told Dawn Images.
For more updates Subscribe to Media Eye News
–IANS
