BY – SUGANDH KHANDELWAL
Women’s safety in healthcare is a pressing issue that demands immediate attention and action. Healthcare environments must not only focus on physical health but also create spaces that ensure women feel secure and respected. From hospital wards to clinics, women face unique challenges, including gender bias, harassment, and a lack of personalized care that often undermines their dignity and well-being.
Prime Areas of Concern:
- Physical and Emotional Safety: Ensuring safety from harassment or abuse within healthcare facilities.
- Gender-Sensitive Policies: Addressing systemic biases and promoting inclusive practices tailored to women’s needs.
- Privacy and Consent: Strengthening protocols around patient consent, especially for sensitive examinations or treatments.
- Access to Care: Bridging gaps in accessibility to healthcare services, particularly for women in marginalized communities.
Women-centric safety is integral not just for individual well-being but for building trust in healthcare systems. Institutions that champion safety and equality are likely to see better health outcomes and improved patient satisfaction.
Efforts aligned with global healthcare safety standards and initiatives like the WHO’s gender-responsive health systems can drive systemic change. Addressing these issues head-on ensures healthcare becomes a space where all women feel empowered and protected.
Implementing comprehensive training for healthcare workers on gender sensitivity as well as establishing robust reporting mechanisms for complaints related to safety or harassment. Designing facilities that prioritize privacy and comfort for female patients. Also incorporating women’s voices in policy-making to align services with their specific needs.
The Lancet’s Overview
The prestigious peer-reviewed journal The Lancet’s article titled “A Crisis of Safety: Female Health-Care Workers in India Need Reforms” highlights the critical need to address safety concerns for female healthcare workers in India. It underscores the significant risks these professionals face, including workplace violence, harassment, and systemic inequities, particularly in public healthcare settings.
The article terms operating theatres and other isolated areas as ‘areas of particular concern as female staff might be at risk’ in these areas. The absence of proper surveillance and reporting mechanisms allows inappropriate behaviour and harassment to go unchecked. Basic safety measures such as comprehensive rape kits and sanitisation training for staff are still not universally implemented across hospitals in India. To address this critical issue, experts suggest following safety measures:
- Mandatory CCTV surveillance in all areas of government hospitals, including operating theatres and on-call rooms.
- Standardised protocols and comprehensive training for all hospital staff on recognising and responding to violence against women.
- Establishing hospital-based crisis centres for women across India, expanding successful models similar to Dilaasa.
- Stricter laws and enforcement to prosecute perpetrators of violence against health-care workers.
- Improved infrastructure such as secure staff housing, transportation, and well lit hospital premises.
- Regular safety audits of hospital facilities and anonymous reporting systems for staff to raise concerns.
- Increased representation of women in hospital leadership and safety committees.
Implementation of these measures will require coordinated efforts from hospital administrations, law enforcement, policy makers, and civil society organisations. Medical education curricula should also incorporate comprehensive training on gender sensitivity and violence prevention.
Beyond physical safety measures, we must also address the deeper societal attitudes that enable violence against women, including challenging of patriarchal norms within the medical profession itself. Health-care institutions should promote gender equality, diversity in leadership, and zero tolerance for sexual harassment or discrimination.
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(24)01765-3/fulltext
CPPR Highlights Advisories on Women’s Safety
Another article published by Centre for Public Policy (CPPR) highlights ‘advisories on women’s safety in healthcare settings, questioning whether these measures are genuinely progressive’. In the article, CPPR analyst Anu Maria Francis underscores the need for systemic reforms to ensure safety and equity in workplaces. She also talks about the importance of separate restrooms, changing rooms, female security personnel, emergency helplines, alert systems, and CCTV surveillance as essential components of workplace safety, especially in environments where women are employed. ‘The root of the problem lies not in the absence of laws or policies but in the lack of rigorous accountability and enforcement mechanisms. This failure undermines efforts to ensure a safe working environment’, adds Francis.
Francis, in her article, proposes the establishment of a third-party social audit, carried out by a diverse committee. According to experts, this committee would include doctors, nurses, local self-government members, the station house officer (SHO) from the relevant police station, women police officers, representatives from the Prevention of Sexual Harassment (POSH) Committee, and NGO members. Utilising established metrics, the committee would assess and recommend improvements to safety systems every quarter. The committee can use a unified online dashboard to represent the standards that can be accessed by the relevant authorities. Effective feedback and monitoring systems, including social audits with fair representation of women, to measure the effectiveness of the safety mechanisms are crucial for ensuring accountability and improving safety standards.
IMA Survey Unveils the Bleak Reality
A recent IMA survey has found that one-third of the respondent doctors, mainly women, reported feeling “unsafe” or “very unsafe” during their night shifts, with some even considering carrying weapons for protection.
The study, which surveyed 3,885 doctors, revealed that 45 per cent of them lacked access to a duty room during night shifts. This survey, the largest of its kind in India, was conducted in response to the recent rape and murder of a female trainee doctor at Kolkata’s RG Kar Medical College and Hospital. The tragic case of a trainee doctor at R.G. Kar Medical College in Kolkata, which has drawn national attention to the urgent reforms needed to protect women in healthcare roles. The survey findings call for comprehensive policy interventions, enhanced security measures, and the establishment of a more supportive workplace environment to ensure both physical and psychological safety.
Of the respondents, 85 per cent were under 35 years old, and 61 per cent were interns or postgraduate trainees, with women making up 63 per cent of the sample. The survey revealed that 24.1 per cent of doctors felt unsafe and 11.4 per cent felt very unsafe, amounting to about one-third of the respondents. Among these, a higher percentage was women. The survey report also emphasizes aligning these efforts with broader gender equality initiatives and international safety standards to address the root causes of these issues, fostering a safer and more inclusive healthcare system.
Women’s Safety Discussed at Bengaluru Summit
At the 4th National Health Summit in Bengaluru, Dr. Shobha Prakash, the first woman president of the Private Hospitals and Nursing Homes Association (PHANA) in Karnataka pledged to prioritize women’s safety and leadership in healthcare. At the event, Karnataka Health minister Dinesh Gundu Rao also emphasized the need to ensure safety of medical professionals and acknowledged the invaluable contributions of women doctors and healthcare workers. Dr. Sharan Patil, chairman of Sparsh Group of Hospitals, emphasised the vital role of women in the healthcare workforce and underscored the need for robust measures to ensure their safety and well-being.
https://health.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/hospitals/experts-stress-on-womens-safety-in-healthcare/116290306
