Firstpost Podcast: How social stigma affects access to healthcare for vulnerable groups; an expert explains

When it comes to dealing with communicable diseases like the novel coronavirus, issues of stigma and discrimination often come to the forefront. This problem is more serious in the case of COVID-19, as it has had a deep impact on the everyday lives of people across the world.

In India, many incidents of social shaming related to the disease have emerged in recent times. Terms like ‘social’ distancing instead of ‘physical’ distancing serve to reinforce regressive caste practices. In such a scenario, how do we facilitate the vulnerable to smoothly access healthcare?

To break this down, Dr. Aiswarya speaks to Magdalene Jeyarathnam, the founder of East West Centre for Counselling and Training as well as Indian Institute of Psychodrama Therapy. Both of them draw on their professional experience with fighting tuberculosis and HIV to reinforce how addressing disease-related stigma is crucial to containing any pandemic. You can listen to the full episode here. Here is the full transcript of the interview:

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Today is Day 5 of the complete lockdown, which is a measure taken for the suppression and containment of the Coronavirus outbreak in India. The days are filled with anxiety for all of us staying at home without any infection. But can we imagine the mind-set of people who are spending their time in quarantine in their home or state-run facilities either because of their travel history or because they were in contact with someone who was COVID 19 positive. I am Dr. Aiswarya Rao, a Paediatrician and Public Health Consultant and today I am going to talk to my colleague Magdalene Jeyarathnam, who is the founder of East West Centre for Counselling and Training, and for the Indian Institute of Psychodrama, where she uses expressive arts and therapy for dealing with emotional and psychological well-being.

Follow LIVE updates on the coronavirus outbreak here

A: Hi Magdalene! Thank you for agreeing to talk to me for my Podcast
So, I was just telling our viewers that you and I go a long way back in our work together in fighting another virus that is the HIV virus. I was thinking I can pick on your expertise today, see if there are some lessons in that we can use in our present effort to contain this COVID infection.