KOLKATA: Women surgeons or surgeons’ assistants have been making their presence felt for decades now, but when
Jiya Das and
Debdatta Biswas stepped inside the operating theatre on Thursday, they not only broke the glass ceiling, but smashed it to smithereens. They became Bengal’s first
transwomen OT technicians to have assisted doctors during surgeries.
The two 24-year-olds accomplished this feat as part of their internship training, and are now looking forward to a dignified career ahead.
For Jiya, a graduate from Malda, it’s a far cry since the days of having to work as a raunchy dancer in order to support her family of four after her father underwent heart surgery. This line of work, which meant having to tour the interiors of Bihar with a dance troupe, left her in a very vulnerable position, at the receiving end of crude, explicit comments. “Working as a laundiya performer was not by choice,” she told TOI. “I was extremely vulnerable. But I had to support my family, and had to go through with it. Now, I can dream of a dignified career.”
Debdatta, a postgraduate in Bengali, would give private tuitions to support her ailing parents. “I was filled with excitement, stepping into the OT for the first time to assist the doctors,” she said. “All went well, and I am sure the next six months will give me a lot of exposure and make me a competent OT technician,” said the Batanagar resident.
Their dream had its seeds sown during a gender rights meet at the American Center, Kolkata, last year. Activists and organizations mooted the idea of engaging transgendered persons into various courses, in keeping with their qualifications.
Dr
Satadal Saha, founder of School for Skills and Allied Health Science (SSAHS), which conducts paramedical courses, offered to train two transwomen free of cost as a pilot project.
Jiya Das and Debdatta Biswas joined the batch of 48 students who enrolled for the course in July last year at SSAHS’s Pansukura unit. Both performed well in the mid-term assessment at the end of classroom teaching. The six-month internship with expose them to hands-on experience. “Right from day one, they have been extremely focused and committed. They will be very compassionate, caring and competent health workers. This was a pilot project and we plan to take in more transgendered students who have the aptitude for it,” said Dr Saha.
Dr Tapan Jyoti Banerjee, the chief surgeon at Care and Cure Nursing Home, Barasat, where the two started their internship on Thursday, also gave them a thumbs-up. “They are good and committed. I am sure they will have a great career ahead,” he said.
Jiya’s and Debdatta’s achievement — and the opportunity they received — has made organizations and activists working in gender issues upbeat. “Transgendered people are discriminated against, despite the law and their qualifications. It was Koushik Hore, a queer rights activist, who came up with a programme called Sathrangi and scouted these two candidates for training. We are hopeful that more transgendered youths would now feel confident of adopting such careers,” said Bappaditya Mukherjee, director of Prantakatha, an organization that works on gender issues.
“We are in touch with a few hospitals in Kolkata that will give them decent stipends during their internship and absorb them once internship ends. One hospital has already committed,” said Namit Bajoria, founder of Kutchina Foundation.
