A report by Swachh Bharat Mission says that 74.5 per cent of public places are equipped with toilets. Another report by the Ministry of Jal Shakti states that there are 2.23 lakh Community Sanitary Complexes built across all States and UTs under the Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM) since October 2014. Over 92 lakh toilets have been constructed since the launch of SBM Gramin (SBM (G)) in April 2020.

While toilets are there, are they accessible? This is the question one should ask. The National Family Health Survey (NFHS) focuses on 131 health indicators, but not until the NFHS 5 survey did they include the question of accessibility of toilets in the survey. This happened after the inputs from the Department of Drinking Water and Sanitation (DDWS) and the Ministry of Health & Family Welfare questioned the accessibility.

One might ask, why is the question of accessibility so important? The answer is quite simple. Access to water, sanitation and hygiene is the most basic human need and is also included under the Sustainable Development Goals by the UN.

Are These Numbers Real?

This thought crossed my mind because back in 2021, I went on a solo trip, on a bus to Udaipur from Delhi. There, the bus made two stoppages. This was done so people could get a quick dinner and freshen up, relieve themselves and be prepared for the rest of the journey. This was a nightmare. The bus only stopped for 10 minutes. While some men used the washroom, others went to the bushes.

For the women, there were three cubicles. One of them was broken, and the other one did not have a light bulb, which meant only one was usable. There was a long queue for that cubicle, and time was short. There was no point in trying to find an isolated corner, because it was past midnight, in an unknown area.

I waited anxiously. When finally, my turn came, I saw an overused, dirty washroom. The toilet seat is in a horrible condition. I wanted to touch nothing there. But I had to pee. So, I used my mask to cover my nose from the odour, folded my pants so they did not touch the floor and squatted. It was quite a task to balance.

On my way back to Delhi, I made sure to not drink any water for over a 13-hour bus journey. I dehydrated myself so I did not have to use the washroom. When I did reach, I was severely dehydrated and was sick for three days.

I shared my experience with my friends only to realise that many women have faced the same. There are no washrooms for women.

A friend of mine told me that it is because these roads and dhabas are mainly designed to serve men. They are the ones who travel at night or are on the roads most of the time. As a result, the few women who do travel or are on the road suffer.

Health Risks Women Are Prone To

Well, it is true, but partially. While holding your pee for too long can lead to health risks, peeing on a dirty toilet seat cannot lead to infections unless your urethra is in contact with the bacteria present on that toilet seat. However, nobody wants to sit on a dirty toilet seat, even if you do not get an infection. A safe and hygienic toilet is a basic need.

One of the regular saleswomen, Usha, who visits my house shared her experience with me. “Being on the road constantly means I must use the dirty public washrooms. But I do not want to use them. So, sometimes I ask my regular customers to let me use their washrooms. Some say yes, and some say no. I understand they are also concerned about their safety and privacy,” she says. As a result, Usha spends most of her day not drinking enough water and holding her pee when she is at work. Due to this, she also suffered from a Urinary Tract Infection (UTI).

Her friend, Halima too faced similar problems and due to increased levels of uric acid in her body, she suffered from Hyperuricemia.

Other health risks are kidney stones and other kidney problems, headaches, dull skin, xerostomia or dry mouth, fatigue, and urinary incontinence, which means losing control over your pelvic floor muscles leading to uncontrolled leakage of urine, seizures and weakness.

What Can You Do?

Wear comfortable clothes and capris. Capri pants are comfortable and are short in length, which means this won’t touch the toilet floor when you squat or sit.

Carry Essentials

Even though you cannot get a UTI alone from sitting on a toilet seat, it is always safe to carry a toilet seat sanitiser. If nothing, it can help you get rid of the bad odour so you can use your stand and pee device inside the toilet. You can also use disposable toilet seat covers if your knees are weak, and you cannot squat. Always flush with your seat down.

Always keep disposable gloves, a portable bidet (fill it with water before use), a pocket liquid handwash, wet wipes, tissues and sanitiser handy. Do not forget to keep extra sanitary pads. It might sound a lot, but I promise that it all fits in one pouch. Use this travel-friendly pouch every time you are on the road, or using a public washroom.

What Can We Learn From Others?

However, in case we do not get these technologically advanced toilets here, you can always pack a travel-friendly toilet kit!

Hantavirus has the potential to linger indoors and spread through contaminated dust, especially in rodent-infested, poorly ventilated spaces, according to infectious disease expert Dr. Vasant C. Nagvekar.

So far, 11 people linked to the MV Hondius cruise ship have been affected. While all passengers have been repatriated and quarantined, the World Health Organization (WHO) anticipates that additional cases may emerge based on observed symptoms.

Also Read: Hantavirus Cases Climb To 11; WHO Warns Countries Of Further Spread

In an exclusive interview with HealthandMe, Dr. Vasant, a Consultant in Infectious Diseases and Internal Medicine at Lilavati Hospital and Research Center, Mumbai, explained how the virus can spread even within indoor environments. He noted that contaminated dust and surfaces are potential sources of transmission, making proper hygiene and preventive measures crucial.

The expert also stated that the Andes strain rarely transmits person-to-person and emphasized the need for global prevention through enhanced surveillance, early detection, vector control, environmental sanitation, and public awareness, particularly amid urbanization, climate change, and ecosystem disruption.

Here are the excerpts from the interview

Q. How Long Does Hantavirus Survive?

Dr. Vasant: Hantavirus does not survive for long outside a host body and is rapidly inactivated by exposure to sunlight, detergents, and drying.

However, in enclosed indoor environments that are cool with temperatures at 4 degrees Celsius or less, poorly ventilated, and contaminated with rodent urine or feces, the virus may remain infectious for several hours or even longer.

Q. Is Hantavirus Airborne?

Dr. Vasant: Yes, the virus can be transmitted indirectly through the air. However, hantavirus does not circulate freely in the air in the same way as influenza or coronavirus during normal social interactions.

It becomes airborne when contaminated rodent urine, droppings, or nesting materials are disturbed during activities such as sweeping or cleaning. At that point, the virus can be aerosolized and inhaled by people.

Q. How Can Hantavirus Spread Indoors?

Dr. Vasant: Indoor exposure usually takes place in environments where the presence of goes unnoticed – for example, in cabins, storage rooms, warehouses, inside false ceilings, or vacant rooms.

One could be exposed to hantavirus through inhalation of contaminated dust when a room that has not been used for a while is opened or is cleaned without any protective measures.

Also read: Fact Check: Can Ivermectin Help Treat Hantavirus?

The reason why hantavirus exposure is alarming is that it usually takes place during normal activities, which we do without even suspecting anything dangerous.

Q. How Does the Andes Strain of Hantavirus Spread?

Dr. Vasant: The Andes hantavirus stands out because, unlike most other hantaviruses, it exhibits evidence of rare person-to-person transmission, mostly through direct and extended contact between people. As a result, this particular strain is highly interesting for scientists studying infectious diseases around the world and is extensively researched as such. It should be noted, however, that person-to-person transmission is very rare in comparison to respiratory pathogens, such as the influenza virus or SARS-CoV-2.

Read More: Why The Norovirus Outbreak On A Caribbean Cruise Ship Is Not A Cause for Panic

Q. What global strategies are needed to prevent the emergence of new viruses?

Dr. Vasant: What is required from our world in terms of the prevention of new viruses is a globally integrated strategy within the public health sector.

Surveillance systems should become more advanced on community levels, especially when there are high risks of increased contact between humans and animals because of urbanization, climate change, and ecosystem destruction.

Early detection, information exchange at the international level, vector control, environmental sanitation, and public awareness are just as significant. New infection strains cannot remain limited to just being a problem of individual countries.

The National Testing Agency (NTA), which today cancelled the NEET-UG 2026 examination held on May 3 amid allegations of a paper leak, has left thousands of students across the country anxious, frustrated, and emotionally overwhelmed, triggering protests and outrage among students and parents.

According to mental health experts, such uncertainty can deeply affect students who have spent months preparing for the examination, often sacrificing sleep, proper meals, and their social lives. The sudden cancellation of the exam can therefore leave them feeling helpless, uncertain, and emotionally exhausted.

Experts stressed that this setback should not be seen as a personal failure and urged students to remain calm.

Speaking to HealthandMe, Dr. Aarti Anand, Senior Consultant Clinical Psychologist at the Department of Psychiatry, Sir Ganga Ram Hospital, said feelings of anger, helplessness, disappointment, and anxiety are natural during such situations, especially when the future appears uncertain.

“It is very natural to feel anxious and helpless at this point, but remember that you are not alone in this situation. Thousands of students are going to be affected,” she said.

She also emphasized that students should not assume that their hard work has gone to waste.

NEET-UG 2026: What Is The Controversy All About?

The National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET-UG) is India’s primary national-level entrance examination conducted by the National Testing Agency (NTA) for admission to undergraduate medical (MBBS), dental (BDS), and AYUSH courses in government and private institutions.

The single, standardized offline test for this year was conducted on May 3 for over 22.79 lakh candidates across India and abroad.

“The examination on 3 May 2026 was conducted as scheduled and under a full security protocol,” the NTA said.

However, according to information shared by Rajasthan Police officials, alleged malpractice came to light after certain question sets circulated before the examination reportedly showed similarities with the actual NEET-UG paper.

Also read: Fact Check: Can Ivermectin Help Treat Hantavirus?

Officials probing the matter stated that they recovered a document containing more than 400 questions that had allegedly been circulated days before the exam. Out of these, more than 100 questions from Biology and Chemistry were said to bear “striking similarities” to those that eventually appeared in the examination.

Authorities have described the material as resembling a “guess paper” or coaching-style test series, though investigators have not ruled out the possibility of a larger organized network.

The government has now ordered a comprehensive Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probe into the alleged irregularities surrounding the examination.

The NTA has also announced that the medical entrance test will be conducted again on fresh dates to be notified separately, a development that many students feel undermines the time and effort they invested in preparation.

NEET-UG 2026 Cancelled: What Effect Can This Have On Students?

Dr. Manisha Arora, Director - Internal Medicine at the CK Birla Hospital, Delhi, told HealthandMe that students can experience palpitations, migraines, insomnia, and constant worry about their rank and future.

“Postponement can feel like an identity suspension. Students start thinking, ‘What if I do not get the same marks next time? What if I have forgotten everything? What if the exam is harder? What if questions come from outside the syllabus?”

“These thoughts are very common. Students can also develop headaches, dizziness, stomach pain, nausea, diarrhea, insomnia, racing heartbeat, panic attacks, binge eating, or even loss of appetite,” Dr. Manisha said, warning parents and guardians to pay close attention to students’ mental well-being.

NEET-UG 2026 Cancelled: How Can Students Cope With The Stress?

Read More: Why The Norovirus Outbreak On A Caribbean Cruise Ship Is Not A Cause for Panic

“One important thing for students to understand is that the knowledge they have gained will not go to waste. They will be able to appear for the exam on the next date,” Dr. Aarti said.

She added that students must acknowledge their emotions instead of suppressing them.

“Students should acknowledge their feelings instead of suppressing them. They should use this pause as a way of structuring their life and moving ahead. They should focus on self-care, sleep, food, and hygiene instead of watching media discussions,” she said.

Mental health professionals also advised students to avoid excessive speculation and negative thinking about future examinations. Instead, they recommended maintaining routines, staying connected with family and friends, and continuing preparation steadily.

“I urge all students not to think negatively, overthink, or fuss about what will happen in the next exam. It is very important for students to keep calm and continue their preparation,” she said.

Dr. Aarti further noted that such moments can become a test of emotional strength and resilience for students navigating academic pressure.

“Students should not feel that the cancellation is a failure. It is not a failure,” she added.

Dr. Manisha urged students to build on the preparation they have already done, gradually remove exam fear from their minds, restart calmly, and prepare themselves to appear for the exam again.

If you have ever attended a nursing pinning ceremony in India, you know the moment. The lights dim. Young women carrying small brass lamps walk in, their faces glowing softly as they recite the Nightingale Pledge. Somewhere in the audience, a mother wipes her eyes because her daughter has become the first nurse in their family. The lamp is small. The promise it carries is enormous.

I have stood in many such auditoriums. Today, as a Director of Nursing, I stand among the senior nurses watching the next generation arrive. And I want to tell the young nurse holding that lamp something I wish someone had told me years ago: the profession you are entering is not the same profession your seniors entered. It is wider, brighter, and finally beginning to make room for you.

This year’s International Council of Nurses theme, “Our Nurses. Our Future. Empowered Nurses Save Lives,” feels written for that young woman holding the lamp. It says clearly that the future of healthcare belongs to her.

To understand that future, we must first look at the women who carried the profession before her.

I think of Annie. She trained in Kerala thirty years ago, moved north for her first posting, and never left. She has helped deliver more than two thousand babies in labor rooms that are often crowded, short-staffed, and always full of hope and fear. She does the things doctors rarely have time for. She teaches first-time mothers how to latch a baby, reassures anxious fathers, and explains kangaroo mother care to grandmothers who understand it instinctively the moment skin meets skin.

“When a baby is born,” Annie says, “a mother is born too. Sometimes she needs more help learning to be a mother than the baby needs learning to be a baby. That teaching is also nursing.”

I think of Sunita, who leads a Delhi ICU. During the second COVID wave, she lost a colleague to the virus and returned to duty the next morning. “I cried in the changing room, then I washed my face, then I went back. That is nursing.”

That is also leadership in its rawest form — the kind young nurses inherit not in classrooms, but in hospital corridors at 3 a.m.

What Annie and Sunita share is something quietly extraordinary: they teach. Ask any Indian family about the first hours of their child’s life, and they may remember the doctor briefly, but they will remember the nurse for much longer. It is the nurse who places the baby on the mother’s chest during the golden hour. The nurse who teaches breastfeeding explains danger signs before discharge, and shows trembling parents how to hold or bathe a newborn safely.

This is parent education in its purest form, and in India, it is overwhelmingly delivered by nurses. Florence Nightingale once called maternal nursing the most consequential nursing of all. More than a century later, she is still right.

And here is what is changing for today’s young nurses.

The corporate healthcare sector in India is finally building career pathways that reflect what nurses have always contributed. Roles like Nurse Practitioner in Obstetrics, Nurse Practitioner in Neonatology, certified lactation consultants, childbirth educators, fetal medicine nurses, IVF nurse coordinators, and clinical nurse specialists are no longer distant Western concepts. These opportunities now exist in Indian maternity and child healthcare, and they will increasingly be led by your generation.

The doors do not stop there. There are paths from bedside nursing to leadership roles such as charge nurse, unit manager, Assistant Director, and Director of Nursing. There are opportunities in clinical education, quality and patient safety, infection control, simulation training, research, accreditation, and hospital operations. Nurses who once knew only the hospital floor are now helping shape decisions in boardrooms.

This is what an empowered profession looks like — not a parallel system, but a real ladder built inside the very institutions where nurses dedicate their lives.

Nursing is finally being recognized as a clinical profession in its own right. Virginia Henderson described the nurse as “the consciousness of the unconscious, the eyes of the blind, the support of the weak.” Today, workplaces are slowly beginning to match that reality with better staffing norms, stronger security measures, and greater respect for nursing leadership. Progress may not be perfect, but the direction is right.

For perhaps the first time in Indian corporate healthcare, nursing is being seen not as a cost to minimize, but as a profession worth investing in. You are entering nursing at a moment when the profession itself is being rebuilt.

So, to the young nurse holding the lamp tonight: there will come a night when you are exhausted. The shift will have been long. A patient or relative may have spoken harshly. You will sit quietly in the changing room and wonder, for one honest moment, why you chose this profession. In that moment, remember this.

You chose the profession that places a newborn, still warm from birth, onto the chest of the woman who carried her. You chose the profession that teaches a young father, hands shaking with joy and fear, how to hold his baby safely for the first time. You chose the profession that sits beside the dying when even families cannot bear the pain. You chose the profession that quietly keeps hospitals alive through the night.

Mother Teresa once said, “Not all of us can do great things. But we can do small things with great love.” Nurses do small things with great love every single day. But they also do great things, most of them unseen.

You will notice a newborn’s fever before anyone else does. You will recognize the silence of a struggling mother before it becomes dangerous. You will be the reason a patient survives, heals, or feels less afraid. None of this may appear on a discharge summary. But somewhere, in a family’s prayers, your care will remain unforgettable long after your name is forgotten.

And remember the mother from the beginning of this piece — the one wiping tears as her daughter walks in carrying a brass lamp. She represents every mother in India. She is the mother Annie reassured thousands of times. She is the mother Sunita prayed for during the pandemic.

And one day, she will sit in another auditorium watching another young nurse step forward to receive her lamp.

Because here is the detail most people miss about the lamp-lighting ceremony: no nurse lights her own lamp. A senior nurse lights it first, and from that flame every junior lamp begins to glow. Nursing is a profession that passes its light forward. Annie lit Sunita. Sunita will light you. And one day, another young nurse will look to you for light.

When that moment comes, lean forward.

The lamp is still burning. It has burned through wars, pandemics, and generations of women whose work was too often overlooked. It is now in your hands. Carry it gently. Carry it proudly. Carry it far. And when your hands grow tired, do not let it go out.