Summary While employing a phenomenological perspective, the present study aimed to explore the varied experiences of transgender individuals in Kashmir, concerning their health-seeking behavior, and the constraints they face while accessing healthcare resources on a day-to-day basis in their life world. Participants were recruited through the purposive and snowball sampling strategies and the sufficiency of sample size was determined by data saturation. Data were collected using face-to-face in-depth interviews and analyzed through Colaizzi’s procedure of extracting recurrent themes and their interwoven relationships in qualitative research. Three main themes of awareness and the preferences for healthcare, gender identity and persistent stigmatization in care settings, and intra-community support and the resultant caregiving were prominent. Results of the study revealed that the transgender individuals in Kashmir experience inappropriate health-seeking behaviour primarily due to their unawareness regarding health, diseases and public healthcare programs/schemes, financial constraints, social exclusion, improper support and social stigma. They often prefer treating their health issues, mostly through local pharmacies or patent medicine vendors (PMVs), instead of visiting the medical professionals in the organized sector. Moreover, in many instances, they were also found to delay their decisions to seek care or simply decided to remain far from any medical intervention. As a result, the transgender individuals in Kashmir usually experience underutilization of formal healthcare services, which undermines their right to proper health and well-being.
Using a qualitative approach, this study aimed to undertake an in-depth exploration of the experiences of COVID-19 patients and their significant others among the economically weaker sections in Kashmir. The study was conducted on 18 participants of different households solely from rural Kashmir while using the purposive sampling technique to recruit the participants and the principle of data saturation to determine the sample size. Data were collected using semi-structured in-depth interviews and analyzed through Braun and Clarke’s thematic analysis framework. From the data analysis, six overarching themes of diagnosis, healthcare, treatment, survival thereof, social support and stigma were arrived at, which delineated the direct or indirect experiences of participants with COVID-19. The findings of the study revealed that the economically weaker sections of rural Kashmir are deprived of requisite healthcare facilities, which further intensifies their vulnerabilities to COVID-19 and associated health issues. They lie at the core of acute health disadvantage amid the COVID-19 crisis, and are hence drifted toward extreme marginality and socioeconomic adversity.
S. Y. Quraishi, The Population Myth: Islam, Family Planning and Politics in India. Harper Collins, 2021, 301 pp., ₹499, ISBN 978-9390351541 (Paperback).
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