The White Coat aka Bacteria, Sweat and Gunk Coat

The all-doctors-must-wear-white-coats policy recently resurfaced its ugly head in my workplace. A special white coat counter is now erected to serve its purpose of perpetuating the white-coat wearing policy. Doctors are to collect their white coats from between 730am and 8am, write down their names, and return it at 5pm again. The White Coats are supposedly recycled and washed everyday, again for the purpose of perpetuating this policy, so that doctors cannot fault the white coats being reservoirs of pestilence. To be frank, I don't mind wearing a white coat if its kept in a hygenic state everyday, and if it can bestow us confidence when treating our patients. BUT, this is the Tropics, where temperature in the day time can go up to a boiling 39 degrees celsius! Imagine in a non-airconditioned ward, wearing a tie, and on top of it, a white coat, definitely a receipe for another Chernobyl meltdown! The working conditions for doctors are already uncomfortable enough, please do not make it unbearable. I urge the administrators who sit comfortably in their climate-controlled offices to be more sensible and apply the wear-white-coat policies in air-conditioned hospitals only. Because, if not, you have violated the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 23(1) Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favourable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment.