: ‘I Judged Sexually Active Unmarried Women Till a Patient Changed Me’: Gynaecologist #IndiaNEWS #Health Care Today, on Doctor’s Day I find myself drawn to a pertinent issue that I have come across

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‘I Judged Sexually Active Unmarried Women Till a Patient Changed Me’: Gynaecologist #IndiaNEWS #Health Care
Today, on Doctor’s Day I find myself drawn to a pertinent issue that I have come across during my years of practice and even more as I worked as a social worker to better the lives of women.
I have been practising as a gynaecologist for over 15 years now and when I first started I was very enthusiastic. My sole aim was to provide the best care and treatment to all my patients. I worked hard and did exactly so.
However, little did I know that something was preventing me to be the healthcare provider that I could be — my own belief system.
Coming from the background that I do, I held a prejudice towards patients who were unmarried and sexually active. Though I provided them with the same standard of care as my other patients, I must admit that I wasn’t completely judgment-free towards them.
However, things began to drastically shift when I saw a patient in my clinic who came with complaints of unusually heavy bleeding. Upon much probing, she told me that she had consumed 30 tablets of the ‘emergency contraceptive pill’ to abort her pregnancy as she was unmarried.
Perplexed, I asked her why she didn’t visit me or any other gynaecologist before consuming the tablets. To which she said that she didn’t dare to do so as she had previously felt humiliated at a gynaecologist’s clinic for she was shamed by them about being sexually active and unmarried.
At that moment, my perspective began to shift and I began treating all my patients irrespective of their marital status with empathy rather than judgment. I was further propelled to take this up as a cause when I met my colleague at the NGO Sachhi Saheli, a young woman in her mid-twenties who claimed her space and was not ashamed of being a sexually active unmarried woman. When I met her I realised how several women just like her had claimed their bodily autonomy as they put pleasure at the centre of their sexual relationships.
This helped me understand that women, irrespective of their marital status, have the right to non-judgemental and safe SRH services. And thus began my journey of becoming a sexual and reproductive health (SRH) rights defender.
My work gained even more perspective as I had the chance to interact with young college women through an initiative called Menstrual Cafe which was started by Rikita from Sachhi Saheli. The cafe is currently functional in several Delhi University Colleges and is a campus program that aims at creating safe spaces for the youth to express themselves freely without any fear of judgment. Through these interactions, I gained a better understanding of the youth of today.
Check-ups sans judgement
Dr Surbhi Singh
With women redefining the age of marriage in the current context, pre-marital sex is no longer a taboo among a considerable section of youth in India.

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