Ginette: From Miami to Mysore

During my time in India, I was given the opportunity to meet many people who are making an impact on global health. Everyone I spoke to about health was able to teach me so much, but one person I spoke to that had the most impact on my perspective on global health was Dr. Vijaya Srinivas whom we called Dr. V.  She is a full-time staff member at PHRII so she was normally around to answer questions at any time for us. She also was a part of some lectures during our time in school.  Later I found out that she is a true warrior in the fight for global health. While many other doctors left PHRII to do work in more comfortable areas, she stays and fights for the health of people who are sometimes forgotten.  When it came time to do the personal communication portion of my project, I sought out Dr.  V. because I knew I wanted to find out more about her after seeing her in action at the Human Papilloma Virus mobile clinic.  I talked to Dr. V. about women's health and difficulties it faces. 

Before I asked questions relating to women's health, I wanted to learn a little more about Dr. V., so I asked why she decided to become a doctor.  She explained to me that when it was time to decide on what she wanted to be, her parents wanted her to become a doctor. Luckily, she also had a longing of her own to become a doctor because she wanted to be the first from her town. At the time, there were no doctors, male or female, coming from her town.  So from the start of her career, Dr. V. was making history.  Her motivation to become a doctor was helping women. She painted a vivid image in my head of the suffering she saw on the streets and how that impacted her at a young age,  dreaming of being able to help some people going through similar situations.

After learning about what brought her to the health field, I was interested in what brought her to PHRII. Through this discussion, I found out Dr. V spent 25 years working where she was only doing family planning services and there she found out about PHRII and the research they were taking part in, which drew her to PHRII because she wanted to take part in research.

                When discussing key challenges in women's health, Dr. V. sees maternal mortality as a challenge. She also noted that maternal l mortality is not as big of an issue as it was when she first entered the medical field and she is thankful for that.

 Later I asked Dr. V if she believes any cultural norms influence the way women's health is looked at. In her opinion, Dr. V thinks that less information goes to women, and women are not reading up on health or being exposed to on health concerns so the ignorance coming from some women makes it challenging for them to get treated or even tested. The overall lack of education and information makes it hard for women health. Another challenge Dr.V sees is the normalcy of young marrying age of women and the male dominance over such women.  A book titled Improving Women's Health in India sees that same challenges as Dr.V does. The book looks at maternal mortality in rural India being the highest in the world (Hammer, 1996). This same book also looks at how male dominance over women has negative effects on women's health.

Dr. V.  believes that the global community can have an impact in addressing the challenges of women’s health in India by working with and sponsoring NGOs like PHRII. By contacting NGOs the global health community will know what has to concentrate on and what needs to be looked at deeper.

Dr. V also gave some suggestions on how a person like me could help in the fight for women’s health.  She told me I could look for small grants. For example, she said that since they are working with cervical cancer I can look for grants that could help with getting new equipment or even helping look for a  grant that would help then get a van that can get PHRII to unreached areas.

 

Overall it was a privilege getting to meet Dr.V and learning about her and her opinions on women’s health in India.

 

 

Referances

Hammer, J. S. (1996). Improving women's health in India. The World Bank.