With Blood-soaked PPE kits and sweat-smeared self-esteem, the feminine medical assistance fraternity has been, incessantly reconciling with the call of professionalism, regardless of circumstances, that impeded in the past two heavy years in the anthropology of Humanity. Confused what?
Let's unravel the most kept coveted, and worth disclosure prospect of the Indian medical landscape, this time not about the patients, but doctors!
With the global upsurge in the casualties left behind by Covid-19 and the subsequent worsening of situations that surround, people have been taken into utmost havoc, amid which a ripening issue of the menstrual health of women medical workers had been majorly undermined.
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Medical staffs from graded doctors to the nurses deployed in assistance of the corona patients, amid exasperating hours and tremendous work pressure, reported to had almost forgotten having their dates to approach in. But, why does this selectively cause a problem for the medically serving femininity, or what sets them apart from the usually menstruating women?
Well, here’s the answer. As every medical assistant does, women also have to be cloaked under heavy PPE kits, donned with masks, glasses etc. and are strictly prohibited to use washrooms or toilets, when worn the kit, in see of avoiding any subsequent infections. Owing to which, placing the sanitary napkin or changing it, becomes a score of dernier for them. As per a doctor’s words, inside the allotted wards of infected patients, the invigilating staff has to be stripped-off any keys, mobile phones or other necessities, let distant of the sanitary aids to be accessed over, even in emergencies.
Many such doctors have heavily reported, being excessively drenched in sweat, sooner to five minutes than they entered the kits, leaving wet footmarks everywhere, further to which their napkins were apparent to be soaked in, and get seemingly dishevelled, and rumbled inside. This often creates a stringent impediment to their concentration on the professional commitments, along which, the ridiculing fear of leakage, over-wash, rashes, infection and a continuous sense of chaos, becomes impending to their perturbation. The entire very metrics of conceptualization placed within and around menstrual hygiene of women, ever alarmed and made aware about, fell catastrophically into dumps, owing to the situations of the feminine medical staffs, coming to light in the past two years.
They've admitted how messy and disgusting it felt, when their dates suddenly came uninvited while on-duty, and the blood began steadily dripping-off their legs. But, grabbing a hold of napkins, or landing a clean loo, out of an unchecked rush around, wasn’t an easy goal of access to them. What discouraged it further was the process of replacement, which required to doff the PPE kit, and once doffed-off, the kit went wasted! Giving to the globally petrified shortage of PPE kits, a major number of women staff, didn't prefer undressing it, and continued their crusades within the blood-bathing situations, for until their shifts didn't move to a day-end. According to the statements, a PPE dressing (from doffing to donning) consumed over two hours of time which could've crucially resulted against the patienpatients'ts health, they're allotted to invigilate, deterring the women from stepping outside their kit-streaks. They subsequently conceded of how wasteful it would've turned out to only append to the disturbing scarcities of it. A doctor shared, “as the kit I'd at the current be wearing had to be disposed-off, the staff that might go under allocation as one, for my alternative shift would be dressing-up in another one, and after coming back I would have donned-in a kit again, reckoning it to an account of 3 PPE kits in total. An utter wastage against a little toleration of self, always wins the former off.” And to save which, they rather jeopardized their menstrual health, conceding to serve the patients irrespective of their circumstances. Most of them agreed to the fact of how devastating it could've proved to be, if their inner unrest actually cast an affectation on their duties, which was the most apparent phenomenon if underscored at the point, but they still tried their best, to prevent such occurrence.
They even submitted their concerns, regarding the onus of a patient's health, which was put with the trust of life and death upon them, and amid relegating ratios of doctors to patients, keeping one on hold would've caused the patients, fatal repercussions.
Conferring besides, to how stigmatic and stereotypically prevalent the talk menstruation in India is, the medical staffs complained of not being able to openly speak about it with their seniors. In all that chaotic and topsy-turvy, with deathly screams and noises of grave cries, a woman uttering "hey...actually I got my periods!", sounds utteutterlyr ridiculous. And this fear kept ravaging women's body of distraught, as the blood of people were significant enough to obliterate the blood of periods! Because India's already overcoming the atrocities across menstruation, such absurd conditions as that the pandemic was, without prior advertence, precaution or preplanning, were destined to mere an ultimatum of prolonged suffering for the women.
Apart from what we heard of the common women's struggles, we came to know the malaise, witnessed by women already fallen prey to menstrual disorders mainly PCOS and PCOD, where excruciating abdomen cramps and unchecked pain, under heavy work pressure, and chaotic environment, left them isolated at their pedestals. They weren't granted enough leaves; the working conditions were overtly paralyzed by the exodus of people, flooding in the hospitals; the common washrooms were left on the verge of individual immunizations; and the summers just overdid it all, with continuous humidity, smearing everything into wet.
Besides, the pressure of saving as many as possible lives, and the combined ambience of cataclysm, aided in only thwarting the efforts the staffs made to tackle the situations. Though few female doctors/staffs self-admitted to have been helped through shifts-exchange, and added concessions, they significantly took it to the forefront, that even the thought of envisaging what millions of female staffs, devoid of such facilities, placed in tier two and three towns, must have been enduring throughout, puts them under jostle.
Henceforth, the ultimate conclusion might offer one shock, of how throttling and crushing the circumstances have proved to be for the women, added to which, came the news and media houses' denial from displaying it as a matter of broadcast! The news was buried under coverage and any further publication was still a question for the issue! Non-covered and non-voiced against, the women kept managing their duties as life-savers under the dim-lights through ravages and scrimmages, which entrenches the deep scars of sacrifices women perform as professionals, on the skins of a nation, and cries, that a women’s professionalism must never and never be put to doubt!
Written By- Upasana Kashyap
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