If Coronavirus victims are suffering in pain, the female medical workers are suffering from problems including sanitary pads. Increasing numbers of coronavirus cases in China have prompted medical workers to work non-stop with limited breaks.
The health workers have to wear Hazmat Suits while attending patients. While wearing suits, women cannot change pads easily. So, most of them control their natural urges and avoid urinating. Even those who manage to wear sanitary napkins find urine and blood mixed as they cannot go to the bathroom frequently.
Coronavirus is spreading like wildfire
With coronavirus spreading rapidly, people are concentrating on the need for masks and protective gears and have neglected the need for sanitary pads. Most shops do not have sanitary pads currently. A woman started a campaign against this on her Weibo (Twitter-like platform) and received tremendous response. Replying to her post, many women, especially from Hubei came out and said that even they were struggling to get hold of sanitary napkins.
In this situation, a university hospital in Shanghai reportedly heaped praises on women medical workers as they made up 79 percent of the hospital's reinforcement team. It also boasted of donating 200 bottles of pills to help women postpone their unspeakable special periods.
Individuals and companies sent more than 600,000 sanitary napkins, period-proof underwear
But this received flak as the hospital was criticized by people on social media. Then the hospital issued a clarification that women were taking the pills voluntarily and they were not forced to do so. The discussion in Weibo was of use as individuals and companies sent more than 600,000 sanitary napkins and period-proof underwear for females working in the health sector.
Another measure that is being criticized is female workers being asked to take birth control pills. It has been made compulsory in some workplaces as it is considered dangerous to conceive at a time when the country is fighting the dangerous virus. Another reason is that there is always a shortage of volunteers to work in the medical sector with the number of patients increasing. Women in some workplaces have been forced to shave their head claiming the action is being taken for safety purposes.
Some places even returned the donations that included sanitary pads as these were not considered as necessary items. It speaks about the ignorance of the people about the sanitary needs of women. If this is the case of women working in the health sector what might be the condition of women working in other sectors, with lesser knowledge or consideration about women's problems including menstruation.
