THIS is with reference to the letter ‘An undue race’ (April 3) about the recent incident at the Lady Wellington Hospital in Lahore involving two Caesarean section (CS) surgeries that were being conducted simultaneously in the same operation theatre (OT), with postgraduate trainees recording and cracking jokes as they tried to outsmart each other. The incident is deeply disturbing and deserves serious public condemnation.

As someone who has personally gone through a CS, I can say without a doubt that an operation theatre is one of the most vulnerable spaces a person can ever enter. A woman on the CS table in a hospital is not simply a ‘case’ for observation, training or amusement. She is a human being in pain, in fear, and has complete dependence on the professionalism, ethics and mercy of the medical staff around her.

Unfortunately, this incident does not feel shocking to many women because some of us have already experienced this culture firsthand. During my own CS experience, I remember feeling less like a patient and more like a spectacle. There were so many people present that it felt as though my body had been put at a public site for viewing rather than at a private, dignified medical space.

At a time when a woman is physically exposed, emotionally fragile, and placing her trust in the healthcare system, even unnecessary observation can feel deeply humiliating. Medical teaching is important. Training future doctors is necessary.

But teaching can never — and should never — come at the cost of a patient’s dignity, privacy, consent and safety. A patient is not a classroom prop. She is not a source of entertainment. She is not an object over whom laughter, a casual commentary, or insensitive behaviour can be normalised.

The incident has raised several urgent questions. Were these women informed about how many people would be present? Was their consent properly taken? Why was their privacy reduced to a curtain? How can anyone justify recording, joking, or making light of a surgery?

What reportedly happened at the said hospital was not merely ‘unprofessional conduct’; it was a profound ethical failure. It reflected a culture in which some of the healthcare workers have become rather desensitised to the dignity of the very people they are meant to serve.

Hospitals must revisit their protocols regarding patient consent, the number of personnel allowed in OTs, and the use of cellular phones and other recording devices. Strict disciplinary action must be taken for any breach of patient privacy.

Aniqa Iqbal
Rawalpindi

Published in Dawn, April 5th, 2026