Poor Sanitation Main Cause Of UTI Infections Among Kashmiri Women

Srinagar—Ufaq Jan often misses her college because of frequent Urinary Tract Infections (UTI). A single use of an unclean toilet means at least one week of fever and back pains for her, “I know I am prone to infections but the unclean toilet that I use at my college and tuition centre is the main factor for my infections, “said Farah. “But in a place like Kashmir who can I say all this?”

In Kashmir, like in any patriarchal society, women issues are rarely talked about in public. Although the sanitation issues are equally distressing for all the genders but females, because of their physiology, bear more long term repercussions.

According to Dr. Shahnaz Teing, HOD Gynecology and Obstetrics in Lal Ded

Hospital, females are more prone to infections especially urinary and reproductive tract infections: “Women physiology is complicated. When a woman is menstruating, pregnant or in post-delivery or post-operative stage, she is more susceptible to infections,” she says.

Frequent Urinary Tract Infections, according to the doctor, can disturb the reproductive health of a woman. By virtue of their anatomies, she said, women are always at risk as their urethras are shorter than males and thus catch urinary tract infections quickly and that if these infections ascend or persist, they affect the reproductive health also.

 “Although we don’t have any statistical data but the hospital often receives patients who have infections only because of poor sanitary health,” added Dr. Teing.

According to Dr. Farah Shafi, Deputy Medical Superintendent Lal Ded Hospital, toilets are breeding ground for infections and their use by patients especially those in post-delivery and post-operative are a huge risk.

“Our patients need clean English style toilets. They can’t sit in squatting position and urinate. It is both painful and harmful. So they need English style toilets but if they are dirty, they will do more harm than the good,” she said.

“Recurrent UTIs can create problem for any female. And if she is on medication like antibiotics for a prolonged period, it is not healthy. She will develop antibiotic resistance. Besides a woman can go into toxic shock if her hygiene is not maintained,” she added.

Fazeelat N. Qureshi, a counsellor appointed at Lal Ded Hospital under NRHM says that the number of college and school going girls with UTI and RTI’s is more than expected. “Sometimes during our awareness drives, school and college girls come to me and break down just because they have caught an infection and they don’t know who to talk about it,” she said. “Women don’t speak. There is a lack of conversation even at homes. A mother doesn’t talk to her daughter. Girls have to be helped and told how important their sanitary health is?”

Fazeelat says that because of the taboo associated with the hospital, very less number of girls and young women come for counselling, “but we need to come out of this. We need to work for ourselves.”

Dr Arshad Misgar, a well known surgeon issues a strict warning for females as how to wash their private parts especially after defecation. “I’d say the very method to wash the private parts is incorrect. Dangerous germs present in the faecal matter are passed onto the genitals inadvertently while girls wash their private parts after defecation,” Dr Misgar said. “This can permanently damage the reproductive parts even lead to infertility.”

“Girls must restrict the washing of private parts without reaching out to the genitals with the same hand,” he advised.

The hospitals where patients are supposed to be treated for infections become the places where they catch them, “I was here for the delivery of my sister-in-law. After few days of using toilets here I got so sick that I myself had to be admitted in a hospital,” said Shamima Rasool, an attendant from Kanihama.

The doctors however repute washrooms to be the only reason of UTI’s in hospitals and stress that the infections are more psychological and that at a new place in a new toilet one either holds urine or takes less water,

“our mind is conditioned a certain way and when we move out of our zone our bodies respond to it. These UTI’s are temporary and go on their own when one returns to his home,” said Dr. Farah Shafi.

Psychological or physiological, Kashmiri women go through a lot of inconvenience because of the poor sanitation especially in public places and given the conservative nature of the society, the problems remain untold and unsolved.

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