Doctors Strip Naked to Protest Lack of Personal Protective Equipment

As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to tighten its grips on the world, even developed countries are struggling to get sufficient personal protective equipment for their health workers to safeguard themselves while taking care of patients.

Some fed-up German doctors had no option but to strip naked recently to protest the lack of the equipment and how unsafe they feel.

A series of photos circulating online show the health workers, both male and female naked, all in a bid to demonstrate how vulnerable they feel without adequate protective equipment while fighting the coronavirus pandemic.

The group calls its protest Blanke Bedenken, which reports say translates as “naked concerns” to drum home their message that shortage of protective clothing and equipment are putting their lives at risk.

“We are your general practitioners. To treat you safely, we need protective equipment. If we run out of what little we have, we look like this,” one of the group’s tweets said next to a naked photo of a male physician.

The group was launched last Thursday and has since garnered growing attention online.

It has featured more photos of doctors posing in their medical practices, some wearing nothing but a stethoscope, hiding their private parts behind medical equipment, paperwork, and toilet rolls.

In one of the photos a doctor holds up a sign that reads in German, “I learned to sew wounds. Why do I now need to know how to sew masks?”

Blanke Bedenken revealed on its website that its members were inspired by Alain Colombie, a family doctor in Pomérols, France, who posed naked in his practice to draw attention to insufficient protection for general practitioners.

Colombie was seen wearing an armband with an inscription “cannon fodder” on it to highlight the problem of shortage of PPEs.