Women face gender discrimination for treatments as well!
Many female sickle cell patients allege the quality of treatment they receive at Salmaniya Medical Complex (SMC) is inferior when compared to male patients. They say suffering is the same, be it man or woman, and hence the Health Ministry should bridge the “gender gap” in its efforts to offer better treatment for patients.
There’s no cure for most people with sickle cell anemia. But treatments can relieve pain and help prevent problems associated with the disease. The SMC had recently opened a new building for sickle cell patients with 90 beds exclusively for males, while women patients are still accommodated in the old building which has only 25 beds. “Even waiting durations are longer for us,” a female sickle cell patient, who doesn’t want to be named, said. “Male patients never wait more than 20 minutes before they are taken to a doctor, but our situation is different. We have to wait for hours before getting a call.”
Bahrain Society for Sickle Cell Anaemia president Zakaria Al Kadhem acknowledges this difficulty. “I am confident that this issue would be addressed soon. All procedures regarding male patients have been very successful and the same would be applied to female patients as well,” he said.
Sources say females patients suffering from sickle cell attacks are admitted to room D, which has only eight beds and this room is always crowded because of high number of female patients. “Sometimes you can see women patients suffering from sickle cell attacks lying on the corridors here and crying out of severe pain,” the sources added. They say room D has only one wash room, making things more difficult for women patients. “Many women patients prefer going home rather than being here. For them suffering pain seems to be much better than sufferings in room D.”
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