Photo: Marija JankovićOn the TikTok profile of a nurse from GAK, the entire event is mentioned exclusively as "caesarean section". The focus is on the intervention, not the person. The woman is just a tool, something necessary for a caesarean section, in order to have something to cut
Obstetric violence is a topic that this society began to seriously discuss only a little over a year ago. Until now, we have mostly listened to and read the confessions of women in labor who were called cows, stupid, received slaps and curses from health personnel. However, we had no idea that obstetric violence could also happen in the online sphere. It still happened, on the night between Tuesday and Wednesday when a nurse from GAK Narodni Front directly transmitted caesarean section from the operating room on the social network TikTok.
The nurse was suspended, disciplined, and deleted her entire TikTok account. The Minister of Health Danica Grujičić and the Office of the Commissioner for Information of Public Importance and Personal Data Protection also responded.
The use of mobile phones is prohibited in the operating rooms. The explicit consent of the patient is required for the recording of any medical intervention. The law on the protection of personal data was clearly violated, there was no consent of the mother. This is clear to us from the miserable attempt to "extract" the sister who, before deleting the profile, announced how the phone accidentally turned on and started a live broadcast on TikTok. Since we're not fools, we wonder if the phone also happened to announce the night before that it would be broadcasting a C-section. Did the phone itself invite followers to send questions about everything they wanted to know about C-sections? What is the phone that sets itself so well and adjusts the frame so that everything can be seen?
Social networks have brought us a lot of good. It is perfectly legitimate, moreover, desirable to discuss and educate the public about health interventions. TikTok, Instagram, and especially YouTube, are full of video content from which we can find out everything we are interested in, what it looks like to remove a mole, a cardiac stress test, an MRI... Everything that we fear if it awaits us in the near future. Let's also add various aesthetic surgical interventions. And really, it's great that it exists.
But all the people we're watching, who are the patients in those videos, have given their consent and consent to be filmed. Also, childbirth is not an unprecedented miracle on the networks. It is irrelevant now what any of us think about giving birth at home, but there are women who choose to give birth this way, record it and put it on social networks. It is their conscious, deliberate decision and their right to do so cannot be challenged.
It is a completely different story, however, when someone without our knowledge, while we are under anesthesia or in severe pain, records without our knowledge or, even worse, directly broadcasts a medical intervention. And let's not lie, the nurse from the Popular Front didn't do it because she wants to educate the public but because of the number of views on TikTok and more visibility.
This is not about an obstetrician, but an instrument technician, which also raises the question of hygiene in the room, because, excuse me, where did someone get the idea to touch the phone with the same hand that is used to apply a scalpel to the surgeon, the scalpel that during a caesarean section needs to cut several layers of tissue? Where did she get the right not only to postpone childbirth, but also to endanger the health and dignity of the patient due to her popularity?
Well, someone will say, maybe she didn't know that it shouldn't be done. You see, we women, at least many of us, often go to beauty salons. There they paint our nails, draw on them, fill them with acrylic gels, lift our eyelashes and groom our eyebrows. Often these wonderful women are proud of their work on our hands, feet, faces. Any, but absolutely every beautician will ask if they can take photos of your nails and post them on Instagram. Absolutely every one, believe me! If, therefore, there is an awareness that you can't even photograph and publish my nails (er, nails) without my consent, we don't want to hear about the possibility that someone doesn't know how not to take pictures while we're naked, exposed, in pain , bloody, cut open on the operating table.
It is in the nature of any kind of violence that the bully does not see his or her victim as a human being. And that can be seen from this case. On the profile of this nurse, this entire event is mentioned exclusively as "caesarean section". The focus is on the intervention, not the person. The woman is just a tool, something necessary for a caesarean section, in order to have something to cut. And actually from that we can best see why obstetric violence occurs: a woman on the delivery table is not a woman, she is not a human being. It is an object from which a child can be taken out, the body itself, which anyone can look at, touch, and live on as they wish.
Behind every violence is a deliberate and conscious ignoring of the fact that a human being suffers that violence. That's why, during the filming of that caesarean section, someone had to be found to shout "cut!" and stop that hell that 200 people watched live.
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At one point, 200 people watched the filming of the birth at GAK, which horrified the public. The nurse has been suspended and disciplinary proceedings have been initiated against her, while the public is still waiting for the authorities to answer many questions
