Sikh doctor in Canada shaves beard to keep serving COVID-19 patients (Gal Baat Oberoi Naal - Ep 1)

[Music] maybe we can start with just a quick introduction as to how you are related to the medical fraternity if respect to Canada and how are you working in the Cova times and also maybe if you can touch a bit upon everybody is thinking about patients everybody's thinking about the job loss and everything maybe less people actually know that there is so much pressure on the frontline worker so maybe if you can in the end also touch about what is your what does your day look like and what all do you do yeah so my name is indy Sauter I'm an emergency doctor in Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto as well as the Scarborough Health Network also in Toronto and I also work as an ICU clinical associate in starting Memorial Hospital so I've been obviously fairly involved on the front line and to various degrees with what's been going on in the kovat pandemic and I feel like being able to work sort of in Toronto Vancouver and the suburb of Toronto is kind of giving me a nice representation of how it's been handled in different places and and also the patient populations that are predominantly involved in getting affected by this I also do some family medicine work mostly in the walk-in clinic setting so I know it obviously has altered that has altered dramatically through this time a lot of family doctors at least for a big chunk of that time we're not seeing patients physically to try and decrease the risk of infection within their clinics or to themselves and their staff so that's sort of been an evolving world and seeing that transition to telehealth and virtual medicine it's interesting I think there's a lot that there's gonna be a lot of fallout from this that might linger you know and I think the introduction of telemedicine services its widespread use is probably something that's not going to go away but to answer the last piece of that so I work predominantly as an emergency doctor and you know it's it's interesting I mean and I've been asked this question a few times on the one hand it's a scary time for everybody this is certainly a scary time for the general public for patients people with sort of significant medical issues or a higher risk but also to the frontline staff that includes doctors nurses respiratory therapists paramedics you know there's a big crew of people that help you know keep patient states and in hospital so I think in the back of our minds all of us know that we're at higher risk of contracting the contracting kovat and I think that influences us at work I mean this sort of hinges on appropriate PPE having good PPE access which fortunately in Canada for the most part we have had but it is it is a it is a worry it's a worry when you're coming back to loved ones you knowing that you're higher risk you accept that I think sometimes a healthcare worker but you know maybe your family hasn't necessarily but you're going to expose them to high risk too and I think that's probably the the most troubling thing for people who are working the frontline right yeah yeah you put it very nicely and and the issue we want to discuss is actually related to it as far as I could understand reading the reports this is something to do with so doctors Sanjeet Saluja having to wear n95 masks to be able to treat patients as I understand what one thing that was confusing to me was missus in Quebec Montreal so when you are treating and other doctors who actually have beard have unshown here and probably we're turbine or bandanas so do you are you supposed to wear the same mask as well and if yes then how is this different from what he was supposed to do but then he was asked to shave to do the same mm-hmm so there are some nuances to the masks that we have to wear in the emergency department so doctor soluta had shaved in order to be fitted to an n95 mask so a particular type of respirator you don't have to wear those NIT fast 95 masks throughout the entire ship today there used only for what we call aerosol generating medical procedures that includes things like CPR and it includes things like intubation so the process of placing a what would call a breathing tube and being attached to a mechanical ventilator so there are certain high risk procedures for which you have to use those masks so it's a minority of the time that you're in the emergency department that you have to wear them ok ok the rest of the time you just wear you wear what's called a surgical mask which are the ones they don't have to have a perfect seal you've probably see them they almost have corrugated in the front they usually loop around the ears you often see people wearing them outside that's what you were for the remainder of this year so does that mean that if you were to be put into a condition of doing those things you'll be asked to wear n95 and due to the instructions and the regulations to be able to because of having a beard is that exactly so the n95 the way the way it provides the filtration it does which is sort of filtering out 95% of the particular matter to a 7 micron size the previous studies have shown that it only works effectively on people with clean shaven faces with men with clean shaven faces now I should say the research on this is kind of interesting so a lot of this research comes from studies in the 80s and at that point they used to just compare essentially clean shaven versus beds with no real nuance of length of bed and so then we stood all then that you know clean shaven is obviously a better fit than beard so no bids and then policies and hospitals since then have pretty much dictated across the borders you have to be clean-shaven at the time that you get fit with these masks and it's very there's lots of different models you get fit to sir and one then you got to know that's the one you use next time if you have a procedure like this that you need to mask for now this sort of more recent studies in the last 5 years that have showed that there's probably a bit of nuance to it so for example there were some studies that suggested okay what if your bed is trimmed down to a certain length three millimeters is what I saw that you can actually fit you can successfully pass the fit test as well so that's what I did so I was like I was not going to shave but I'm located trimming it down I've been doing that anyway so I trimmed it down to three millimeters went for the fit test and passed okay so since then I've been using it but what's happened essentially is that I have I'm able to do it because this was discussion with my chief of emergency and then occupational health and that said that's fine but I don't have a piece of paper that I can then take anywhere else because it sort of just off the calf in a way under the radar because it doesn't fit with that policy and institutional requirements of being clean-shaven oh that's very interesting because yeah I think a lot of confusion and people who are reading this news and of course being from a Sikh family though I don't have one shown here I've listened to this a lot that people worldwide are doing it so why did he have to so there are there are there there are some important points that you bring up that it actually depends on who's the person responsible within a hospital who who makes these decisions and if we go by the actual guidelines they still do say that you have to be shaped clean shaved yeah so across the board hospitals now including hospitals I workout would say you have to be clean shaven to be fit tested I'm just bringing this up to you to sort of demonstrate that there's probably more nuance to it than just clean shaven versus bid nice Thanks so so we all know that this is one aspect of it which is the health care and the religion but because this particular incident happened in Montreal Quebec this also has something to do with ongoing bill 21 conversation that has been actually I think I was able to pull up a report very interestingly from Globe and Mail for 2013 so seven years ago when this was first brought up and actually doctor Saluja talked to Globe and Mail back then is that right yes and he said that it'll be really really hard for me to keep continuing the service if this bill basically says that I wouldn't be able to wear my turban and do things Hospital I think luckily the bill ended up being that if you're in the police force and if you're a teacher and if you are in the law as a as a judge or a solicitor that's when they don't allow so they did not include doctors so maybe that's why I continued working correct me if I'm wrong I thought there was also a clause that people get grandfathered into the program - I might be wrong I'm not an expert in oh you're right yet but I think there was something to the effect it so if you were in a particular position and you continue to be there for some particular time you can be grandfathered as well but but the interesting part is that he actually is born and raised in Montreal so as Canadian as they come and he's also somebody who never even trimmed his beard before so I when I read this and then I read his current statements I do believe him when he says that it's a very tough decision for me to do this but what I want from you is maybe your perspective on is this is this something that should be looked at looked into as a decision that goes beyond just a personal thing because this affects the whole movement of let's say the Sikhs who practice their religion and their religious symbols the Muslims will do this and their constant struggle especially against the Quebec government to let them be as they are and still be able to serve in the public service do you think this particular incident can be used by the government or the lobbies on the pro bill 21 side to undermine those efforts yeah I think you you raised a very good question there's so many layers to this chairs like so let's start with the simple stuff first there are alternatives available for people currently who have long beards and do not fit in 95s so they're called packer systems PAPR they're quite cumbersome it involves the use of a herd and a positive air pressure system and we'll get into the details they're not as easy as just fitting a mask on and their availability is limited across the country but I just want to say off the bat that alternatives do exist right now even if you take away sort of the experimental short bed length might be appropriate in fact that so that's that's sort of one and I'll just keep that up there because a lot of people probably don't know this whole scenario with what's been going on in Montreal with this position and then there's a couple of big points I would want people to take away from there one is that I've just you know ever since I've been posting about it I've been seeing a lot of sort of personal attacks on this physician for making a decision that he made and I think the first thing I'd want to reiterate is that that is not for us to do necessarily this guy was born and raised in Montreal his practice that his entire career given the culture there towards people so physical minorities I don't imagine for a minute it's been easy for him to go his whole career the way he does in a place like Montreal so I don't think this is off the cuff this was not a whim this must have been a very difficult decision for him to make and it's really not for us to be questioning its motives from now my my problem and I think what you're sort of raising is what does this mean for everybody else now and it's not just his decision it's also the way it's been picked up and publicized and I think that's what concerns me the most in the context of it being in Quebec that has this bill 21 and has the relationship it does with visible minorities and and religious wear in public spaces right that's what irks me I think the most what does this mean for suit positions you have forbids right it does this mean that anybody else around them they're just going to point to the guy in Montreal and say well he's did it so what's your problem and in that sense it could set us back a little bit and then that's not you know you more can make the argument that he made the decision he did but the fact of the matter is when you're a visible minority whether we like it or not we get placed with labels and individual decisions especially when you gain prominence to not truly individual they're gonna reflect the broader Punjabi Sikh community yes exactly exactly that's a big issue that ya know that's that's very important point and I think that that goes both ways as you mentioned very nicely it goes towards our community that just blaming him and then saying he was never a Sikh to begin with and he's done it he's done a grave injustice to us that that doesn't help and on the other side that also leaves us with if you stand tomorrow and say no please help me find alternative measures because I'll keep having my identity as I do you would it's easier for people to now point out that if somebody else could do it why is your Sikhism different than his so you should be able to do it as well yeah it's it's tough like I mean I'm seeing elements of it now or right like we're talking about pretty nuanced discussions like a within our community yeah we can sort of have these discussions but the vast majority of other white people white Canadians I'm not going to sort of look at it they're not gonna see it like that they're just gonna see this one Sikh guy that shaved his beard so that he can wear in a night if I haven't work and they'll see the sort of heroic element to that but they're not going to sort of understand the new ones to what this means to everybody else and I think you know in a in a in a space where you're already a small minority of what everybody else around the table looks like and you're already trying to fight for your place there this this makes our life a little bit harder now yeah and and to be to be fair I'm less let's say worried or concerned about non Quebec provinces now being here for ten years III in general I'm comfortable to say that people are pretty tolerant and understanding of what what different articles of faith are but I do believe that especially in Quebec this this would not be taken lightly for sure by the pro lobbies the last last thing I want to discuss and maybe maybe it's more of a personal question and please feel free to not answer if you don't want to Sikhism Sikhism is also a very very complex concept for me and probably for everybody who tries to understand it so as far as I go it's hard for me to say things like X Y Z is not a Sikh if he doesn't do this set five things let's say about all the kids but then there are people who take it pretty seriously and for them Sikhism is about those five K's so do you think it's hard for people in such special circumstances when they are they are given a choice where on one side as part of their religion doing service is a big deal which is a big part of Sikhism and he said that in the in the things he told the news reporters but he's also mentioned it pretty clearly that for me this force Ava and I had between what I have been doing till now keeping my Sikh identity in terms of unshown here versus continuing to do saver because I feel people need me this is subjective and everybody would take different decisions given in put in different situations so what where do you stand with this do you have as your personal guidelines some things that you would never compromise or you do believe that everybody would be able to look at it only when they are actually put into situation and looking from outside is very very hard yeah I mean I think what you're saying at the end looking from the outside is probably very very hard right and in general for myself I mean my views of Sikhism I feel like I've always resonated with the philosophy of Sikhism more than perhaps the rich quote-unquote of Sikhism we start looking at your five K's and all that so I think for me the decision you know would be very different perhaps the server component would mean more to me for example then upholding all of the 5 KS and anti cheeks obviously I don't do that now other people are going to think very differently and they probably going to disagree with what I say and I think you know if we let Sikhism be taken over by a minority of people that have very hard lines views on things and I think we're all gonna suffer or Drive the rest of us away so I don't think we went from there I think the what probably would work sort of concerns me the most in this is is again it's not it's not the decision it's it's the context of this right and so yeah there's some great articles that have come out of the UK recently too about sort of sticks being a model minority with its history and colonial Britain being sort of the martial racist is or this concept of sacrificing all the time yeah for the good of other people essentially for the most part and it seems like this is just fitting into that narrative once again that as a Sikh you've got to sacrifice something that is important to you for the good of other people and I don't disagree with that sentiment largely but I think it distracts from the main problem which is why don't we have alternatives why they're not made available in a place like Quebec that has things like Bill 21 and it's pretty negative use of visible minorities all right those are the questions that we should be asking because it's not really a choice if you're adequate alternatives are not made available to you right when they exist that's that's the new ones the discussion that I think we should be having as group yes thanks a lot in the really arm I actually expected the same that is getting somebody talking to somebody who's not only not only supports the beard that is in question but actually is in the front line and actually the same country Canada so that people can listen from somebody who doing the same thing like doctor Saluja was put into but thanks again for a time and more importantly thanks for everything you're doing yeah it's my pleasure happy to reach at if you have anything else you want to talk about immediate annuity as dick Albert pasanda yet on with Joe Norland John Kerry Willie dr. satanic Legolas America Jerry a Kia Panama Harbert he named Pat Alagna a Gabby the Rudy mu delta e mihi gala baat karta Rangi a jai ho sake mujâhidîn al nearly during Ilokano toward assembly like a monkey Donna