Times Now Health Summit 2026: Dr. Rooma Sinha Opens Up About The Hidden Anemia Crisis Affecting Indian Women

At

the Times Now Health Summit in Hyderabad, Dr. Rooma Sinha, Chief Gynaecologist and Director of Gynaecological Robotic Surgery at Apollo Hospitals, led a candid conversation on one of India's most overlooked public health concerns - uterine fibroids and the anemia crisis they fuel among women. Citing data that 77% of women develop fibroids during their childbearing years, the discussion underscored how heavy menstrual bleeding has become normalised to the point of being dangerous.

Anemia That Has Nothing To Do With Pregnancy

Dr. Sinha started by addressing a gap in India's anemia narrative. While public health campaigns largely focus on anemia during pregnancy, she pointed out that it's "not unusual" for her to encounter women walking into her clinic with haemoglobin levels as low as five or six grams. The expert says this is a deficiency rooted not in nutrition, but in unchecked blood loss during menstrual cycles. She explained that women often inherit their understanding of "normal" bleeding from family and friends, who unknowingly normalise what is, in fact, a medical red flag.This normalisation, she said, delays diagnosis for years. Fatigue - something most working women attribute to stress or a long day - is frequently an early, easily missed sign of anemia. As Dr. Sinha put it, the simplest way to catch it is "a hemoglobin test which you can done not even expensive."Also Read: Times Now India Health Summit 2026: High-Risk Pregnancies Are Set to Spike, Warns Fertility ExpertWhen asked what stops women from seeking help despite recognising the symptoms, she did not mince words and said, "It's just pure negligence I feel," compounded by a lack of awareness that the condition is treatable. She called for the issue to be pulled out of the shadows entirely - insisting conversation around heavy bleeding "should not be a taboo" in homes, in media, or in society at large.

Surgery Is Always A Choice

A major part of the discussion tackled the fear many women carry into a gynaecologist's office - that any conversation about fibroids will end in a hysterectomy. Dr. Sinha dismantled this assumption, explaining that fibroids are "by and large not cancerous" and that treatment today spans medical management, non-invasive options, and surgery only when other approaches fail. She stressed that the decision is the patient's to make: Whether a 45-year-old wants to preserve her uterus, or a 23-year-old with a "full reproductive carrier" ahead of her wants a myomectomy instead of a hysterectomy, the choice is tailored to the individual.She closed the session with a direct message to women: Trust your own assessment of what feels abnormal, and don't dismiss heavy bleeding as routine. Drawing on the familiar airline safety analogy, she reminded the audience to "put your mask before you look after others" - because a woman running on low haemoglobin cannot effectively care for her family either. Importantly, she extended her closing message beyond women themselves, urging the men in every household to check in on the women around them, asking simply, "how are you today" - a small question, she said, that could prompt long-overdue conversations about health long ignored.