"Like the IAS, we need an Indian Public Health Cadre."

Edited by : Shivam Rastogi

“If we take a look at our vaccination campaign visuals, where can we find people with disability or transgender people in them?”

What challenges do transgender and non-binary people face in a heternormative public health “cis-tem”? Do our vaccination and other health communication campaigns cater largely to an upper-caste, North Indian audience?

Dr. Aqsa Shaikh is an Associate Professor of Community Medicine and the nodal officer in the covid vaccination centre at Jamia Hamdard. Using storytelling as a teaching tool in the classroom, she believes pedagogical interventions are needed in medical science to build a community of non-discriminatory healthcare workers and doctors.

She speaks to The Third Eye team about health policy reforms that urgently need to be brought about, including the establishment of an Indian Public Health Sector cadre.

The Third Eye is being written and developed by a team of educators, documentary filmmakers, storytellers; people with extensive experience of gathering narratives, oral histories and developing contextual pedagogies for the rural and the marginalised.