ABSTRACT
In Indian society, where no institution is exempt from the class-caste-gender hierarchy and power dynamics, including healthcare, those who exist on the margins have become adept at navigating structures designed to shame, disdain, and humiliate. For marginalized, everyday indignities, through othering, when interacting with these institutions, healthcare encounters become another arena where inequalities and inequities are deeply entrenched and felt at the most personal levels. This chapter shows the ways in which doctors and nurses often disregard patients and family members. Through the experiences of patients and family members, as well as the perceptions of doctors and nurses, the chapter reveals how healthcare settings become spaces where a culture of disrespect is not just present but normalized, perpetuated, and reproduced. This culture is sustained through everyday moral and social evaluative judgments, reinforcing an institutional ethos that upholds the archetype of the “passive patient”. These everyday indignities are not isolated incidents but part of a broader institutional culture that legitimizes the dismissive attitudes of healthcare professionals. By maintaining the image of the “passive patient”, the system not only strips individuals of their agency but also justifies the continuation of these harmful practices.
