Senior female doctor facing harassment, discrimination at major Karachi public hospital

• Female gastroenterologist facing harassment on ethnic and gender grounds at Karachi hospital.
• She says she is being "forced to quit her job".
• “I have been harassed and blackmailed for the last several months on the basis of my gender and ethnicity,” says gastroenterologist.

A senior doctor says she is being harassed and blackmailed for the last several months on gender and ethnic grounds at a major public sector hospital in Karachi.

The doctor is in charge of the hospital's gastroenterology and hepatology ward. She says she is the only female gastroenterologist working at any public sector hospital in Pakistan.

She said she is being "forced to quit her job".

“I have been harassed and blackmailed for the last several months on the basis of my gender and ethnicity,” the woman was quoted as saying by The News.

She showed several WhatsApp and Facebook messages sent to her, accusing her of being a “non-Sindhi” and “a draconian lady”, who is not allowing “natives of the Sindh province” to work at the gastroenterology ward of the hospital. She said she was even receiving calls from unknown numbers as well as written messages to quit her job.

“First of all, I’m a Pakistani citizen who was born in Karachi. I have studied in this city and graduated from the Sindh Medical College. I even married a person who is Sindhi-speaking, but still some people, including some staff members [of the hospital], are harassing me. They are doing negative propaganda against me, which has made me mentally disturbed,” the publication reported her as saying.

“I have filed several complaints with the relevant authorities against this harassment and blackmailing. but now I want to make my ordeal public and urge the high authorities to take notice of this hooliganism. They call me a Punjabi woman, hurl abuses at me, put baseless posts on Facebook and then send it to me and my colleagues on WhatsApp. This should end now,” she added.

The doctor said she will bring the case to the attention of the hospital's newly-appointed executive director, but also urged provincial health minister Dr Azra Pechuho to take notice of the harassment.

“I’m a woman and doctor like her. I treat patients without asking their ethnicity, gender, cast, creed, colour and anything else. I would request her to take notice of this issue of mine,” she said.

Responding to a query, the doctor said she was not aware if any other female employee of the same hospital was being harassed.

Lack of trained and qualified female gastroenterologists

Pakistan lacks trained and qualified female gastroenterologists even though more than 80% of students who graduate from medical colleges are women, according to a recent study.

In a conservative society like Pakistan, most women avoid visiting male doctors or their families don’t allow male doctors to perform any intervention or surgical procedure on their female relatives.

The doctor said she gets female patients from Karachi, other cities of Sindh and South Punjab for consultation and to have gastroenterological procedures like endoscopy and colonoscopy done free of charge.

To a query, the gastroenterologist said she examined over 400 patients, mostly women at her outpatient department, as women from far-flung areas visited the hospital's gastroenterology ward for treatment of their stomach, intestinal and liver diseases.

She added that she along with her team also performed 15-20 endoscopies and colonoscopies in an emergency when people came with internal bleeding and other issues.