The demand of a few Muslim MBBS girl students that they be allowed to wear “long sleeve scrub jackets and surgical hoods” in operation theatres, to comply with their mandatory requirement of being in religious attire at all times, has not found favour with the medical fraternity.
The medical fraternity has mostly responded that the priority for patient safety and sterile protocols in operation theatres should not be compromised.
The Indian Medical Association’s response was that the sterile protocols and dress code inside operation theatres followed internationally accepted norms such as “Bare Below Elbow” policy, which had been directed at ensuring patient safety and that these should not be upset.
It was on June 26, that seven MBBS students belonging to the Muslim community wrote to the Principal of the Medical College Hospital, Thiruvananthapuram, that wearing hijab was mandatory for Muslim women under all circumstances and that hijab-wearing women like them had a difficult time sticking to their religious attire, while maintaining operating room regulations.
Medical college authorities have decided to discuss the matter with the College Council of Management (CCM) and infection control experts and surgeons before giving any decision.
The medical fraternity expressed alarm over the manner in which the issue was now being escalated on social media and in WhatsApp groups, with many questioning why religion should be allowed to come in the way of patient safety and care, while many others see a “clear agenda” in the way in which the letter was “leaked to outsiders” and being debated across various fora
“There are no restrictions on students of any community to wear religious attires of their choice or maintaining their religious identity on the MCH campus. But operating rooms are places where patient care norms and sterile protocols are supreme, where individual choice of attire, religious or otherwise, has no place. In all these years, never before have we had anyone raise a request that operating room attire be modified to suit religious requirements,” a senior MCH faculty said.
In the U.K., following the campaign by the British Islamic Medical Association to “raise awareness of faith-sensitive dress code at work”, NHS National Uniforms and Workwear guidelines were revised in 2021 to accommodate certain requirements of the group. But it was left to individual hospitals under the NHS to implement it or not.
However, the medical fraternity feels that medicine should be allowed to be free from any impositions of religion and faith, he added.
