Rampant sexual harassment of female doctors in Karachi by male staffers

KARACHI - Female doctors in Karachi have revealed that male paramedical staffers at Civil Hospital Karachi are harassing them, and it is causing serious mental stress among them.

The harassment is not limited to only female doctors but also female paramedical staff.

Newly appointed female doctors feel insecure while performing long hours duties in different wards, Outdoor Patient Departments, Intensive Care Unit and the operation theatres of the CHK.

“We are already working under poor and unhealthy living conditions at Civil Hospital,” the Nation quoted a new doctor, who is completing her house job training at the General Patient Ward of Civil Hospital, as saying.

“The Staff Rooms available for the junior doctors lack basic facilities of safe drinking water, proper seating arrangement and clean washrooms.

“Nevertheless, the offensive behaviour of the paramedical workers cannot be tolerated by all means.

“We have brought this issue into the notice of hospital administration many times by informing that the male nurses and ward boys do not give proper respect to us.

“They annoy and threaten us verbally, psychologically and sometimes sexually without having any fear and accountability of the hospital management,” she added.

Another trainee doctor revealed the junior doctors sometime face sexual harassment by the paramedical staffers.

Dr Samrina Hashmi, a former General Secretary Pakistan Medical Association Karachi Chapter, said there is a high-level of political interference in the public sector hospitals.

“The only way to get rid of this problem is to depoliticise public hospitals,” she said.

“In order to improve the performance of the teaching hospitals, the Government should ban political activities in the premises of public hospitals.

“The healthcare institutions should be free from the interference of the political parties,” she added. (ANI)