A document full of doctors

Being open about sexuality in India feels like flipping a coin — on one hand, society is more accepting of it, but on the flip side, many still face judgement and not just from the general public; Some doctors, even gynaecologists, can be narrow-minded about lifestyle choices.

It was this context that made Amba Azaad, a New Delhi-based activist, to start an online crowdsourced document, where people can recommend trusted gynaecologists, who don’t make their patients feel uncomfortable about themselves. With the help of her friends Pavithra, Manishbhai Vakil and Richa Kaul Padte, a Google document called The Crowdsourced List of Gynaecologists We Trust was made, that lists trusted gynaecologists across the country. “There’s a need for it because there are a lot of really awful doctors out there,” Amba says, “And no one wants to get traumatised when they need help with their internal plumbing.”

And it sure has worked, with almost 200 responses coming in so far. “We’ve had over 180 responses so far, and more coming in every day,” says Manish, “The city with the most responses so far has been Delhi (48), followed by Mumbai (41) and Bengaluru (39).”

“People have expressed so much gratitude for the project, which really goes to show how many difficult experiences women are having with gynaecologists,” says Richa, while her collaborator Pavithra adds, “While most responses were from big cities, we were delighted to hear from Ludhiana and Indore as well. We hope there will be more submissions from cities and towns that don’t feature on the survey yet.”

Pavithra says that the survey is also an opportunity for clinics to learn from their patients, as many don’t have proper feedback structures. “This is potentially a great resource for gynaecologists who care about their patients and want to do better,” she says.

While Hyderabad has only three doctors (as of June 10) listed so far, Dr Divya Sudarshan, one of the three, says that sexuality and contraception are the two things that affect the way people think. “Personally, I believe that our girls have opened up as far as sexuality is concerned; we’ve kind of accepted that,” she says, adding, “But we haven’t smartened up as far as contraception goes.”

Awareness of contraception needs to increase, according to her, which makes it hard for doctors to handle tough decisions. “Gynaecologists indulge in moral lecturing because sometimes the girl comes to them very late,” she says, “There is a law in India that states we cannot terminate a pregnancy beyond 20 weeks. If you see a foetus around 20 weeks old, you’ll probably understand why gynaecologists don’t like doing it. It’s almost a fully formed baby. There are times you feel like, ‘I know it’s my job, but why do I need to do this?’”

She also says that the argument that awareness about contraception and how to prevent a pregnancy, will increase sexual activity among women isn’t true.

And Amba and her group hope that the list grows into a real movement. “In the future, we’re looking at building the final product into a more accessible and aesthetic website, and hopefully a mobile app too,” says Manish, while Amba concludes, “We’ve received several requests for a list of doctors to avoid! But right now we’re sticking to sunshiny positivity land.”

Visit https://goo.gl/DSA31U to view and contribute to the list.