Domestic Violence against Nurses by their Marital Partners: AIIMSA, New Delhi #VAW

A Facility‑based Study at a Tertiary Care Hospital

Kamlesh Kumari Sharma, Manju Vatsa
College of Nursing, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, India

Background: In recent times, domestic violence against women by marital partners has emerged as an important public health

problem.

Objectives:1. To determine the prevalence, characteristics and impact of domestic violence against nurses by their marital
partners, in Delhi, India. 2. To identify nurses’ perceptions regarding acceptable behavior for men and women. Materials and

Methods: A facility‑based pilot study was conducted at All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), New Delhi. Data were
collected using self‑administered standardized questionnaire, among 60 ever married female nurses working at AIIMS hospital,
selected by convenience sampling. The principal outcome variables were controlling behavior, emotional, physical and sexual violence by marital partners. Data were analyzed using SPSS 12 software.

The test applied was Fisher’s exact test and 1‑sided Fisher’s exacttest.

Results: Sixty percent of nurses reported marital partner perpetrated controlling behavior, 65% reported emotional violence,

43.3% reported physical violence and 30% reported sexual violence. About 3/5th of nurses (58%) opined that no reason justified
violence, except wife infidelity (31.67%). Of the physically or sexually abused respondents, 40% were ever injured, and 56.7%
reported that violence affected their physical and mental health.

Conclusion: There is a high magnitude of domestic violence
against nurses and this is reported to have affected their physical and mental health.

 

 

download full report here

IMMEDIATE RELEASE– Chhattisgarh Govt denies Soni Sori Food and medicines

Press Statement – 20thJune 2012.

NO RESPITE FOR SONI SORI.

AIIMS SENDS HER BACK AFTER 5 WEEKS OF TREATMENT.

CG GOVT DENIES HER FOOD AND MEDS ON HER WAY BACK !

Soni Sori continues to be ill-treated at the hands of Chhattisgarh government, after a brief breather during her treatment at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences at New Delhi. She is now back in the Raipur Jail after spending 5 weeks recuperating in AIIMS, and the Chhattisgarh government has made clear its intentions of continuing ill-treatment of her, by denying her food, water and medicines immediately after discharge from AIIMS.

Soni Sori was brought to the All India Institute of Medical Sciences on May 10th at the behest of the Supreme Court which ordered immediate and urgent treatment to be provided to her. Ms. Sori arrived in Delhi visibly weakened due to months of ill-treatment and improper medical treatment by the Chhattisgarh government. She was suffering from the continued impact –of the wounds inflicted on her during the inhuman sexual torture meted out to her in October, 2011 under police custody, which had been allowed to fester untreated in the jail. Consequently, she had grave secondary medical conditions, such as intermittent anal and vaginal bleeding, blisters on skin, difficulty in walking etc. at the time when she was brought to AIIMS

Over the 5 weeks of her treatment in AIIMS, she seemed to have recovered significantly, due to regular and expert medical care provided to her. But immediately after her discharge from AIIMS, Soni Sori has been denied her basic human rights yet again by the Chattisgarh government. Soni Sori’s counsel, Mr. Colin Gonsalves expressed his concern to the Chhattisgarh Government counsel, Mr. Atul Jha about no travel arrangements being made for her return to Chhattisgarh, to which Mr Jha assured Mr Gonsalves that every necessary precaution would be taken including, if need be, return to Raipur by flight (as she had been brought to Delhi). But despite these assurances, Soni Sori was taken to Raipur by train, in a crowded unreserved compartment. In scorching summer heat, Soni Sori was made to stand for most of the 24 hour long train journey from Delhi to Raipur, despite her fragile health condition. With daytime temperatures touching 45 degrees Celsius, she was denied water, kept without food for the whole day and not even given the medicines prescribed to her by the doctors at AIIMS.

It should be recalled that Soni Sori, an adivasi school teacher, had been subjected to brutal physical torture and sexual violence during her custody in the Dantewada police station on the night between 8^th and 9^th October, 2011.  Her torture had been confirmed by an independent medical examination conducted by the NRS Medical College and Hospital in Kolkata, during which stones lodged deep in her private parts had been recovered.  However, the medication prescribed by the NRS hospital had been discontinued by the jail authorities in Raipur Jail soon after her discharge, and Soni Sori had been denied any regular medical attention since the examination conducted by the NRS Hospital in October 2011.  In the absence of regular medical care and attention, Ms. Sori’s condition had steadily worsened, prompting the Supreme Court in June 2012 to order her to be brought to AIIMS in New Delhi for immediate medical treatment.

It was sheer and deliberate negligence on part of the Chhattisgarh Government that led to such deterioration in Soni Sori’s health in the first place, that the Supreme Court had to order immediate medical intervention by AIIMS. The manner in which Soni Sori is being treated after her discharge from AIIMS once again raises serious concerns about the intention of the Chhattisgarh government in ensuring her health and safety.  If her medicines are not administered with regularity, Soni will lose the little gains in health that she had made during her stay at AIIMS.

We urge the Chhattisgarh Government to ensure that Soni Sori’s health makes full recovery, and that the recommendations of the medical team at AIIMS regarding physical rest, nutrition and medication are followed diligently. We would like to remind the Government that undertrial prisoners such as Soni Sori are guaranteed basic human rights by the Indian constitution. Soni Sori has already suffered gravely at the hands of Chhattisgarh authorities, first through direct and malicious torture at the hands of the Chhattisgarh police, and then through apathy and negligence of the Chhattisgarh jail authorities. It is time for state violence against her to end.

For more details contact:

Vani Subramanian, Saheli Delhi – 9891128911

Shalini Gera – 9891176443.

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Govt says AIIMS refusal to admit Soni Sori will be probed

First Post, May 10, 2012

New Delhi: Government today assured Rajya Sabha that it will inquire into the denial of admission by AIIMS of  Soni Sori despite the Supreme Court directing the hospital to medically examine her.

Raising the issue during Zero Hour, T N Seema (CPI-M) said Soni was “brutally tortured” in police custody for last one year in Chhattishgarh, a remark which drew sharp reactions from BJP members who opposed raising a subject related to the state in Parliament.
P J Kurien, who was in the Chair, however, said the matter related to a tribal and is within the ambit of the central government.

Seema said she was not talking about the case but about the failure on the part of the AIIMS authorities to admit her despite the Supreme Court order.

“When the Supreme Court has ordered to admit her, on whose authority AIIMS turned her away on 9 May? Why the government has not ordered a high level inquiry into allegations of custodial violence and sexual exploitation?” Seema asked.

She rued that instead of taking actions against the accused policemen, they were given gallantry awards. “The Union government cannot wash its hands off treating it as state matter,” she said.

As members from the CPI-M sought a response from the government, Tribal Affairs Minister Kishore Chandra Deo assured the House that he will get details of the matter and “will surely inquire why the AIIMS did not admit her”.

Amid allegations that foreign bodies were thrust into her private parts, the Supreme Court had last week directed AIIMS to medically examine  Soni Sori to treat her and ascertain the charges and submit a report to it before 10 July.

Soni-, Sori has been accused by the police of receiving “protection money” from a company. She was arrested on 4 October in South Delhi by Chhattisgarh police.

PTI

AIIMS silent on Soni Sori’s admission after 24-hour delay as police play hide and seek

By Newzfirst Correspondent5/10/12

NEW DELHI – The whereabouts of Soni Sori, a tribal woman allegedly tortured by Chhattisgarh Police last year, were unknown to her lawyer and family until Thursday noon, more than 24 hours after the police were supposed to bring her to the All India Institute of Medical Sciences here for treatment under orders from the Supreme Court.

“I have been here at the AIIMS since the morning but I do not know if Sori has been admitted or not,” Supreme Court lawyer Brinda Grover, who is Sori’s counsel, told Newsfirst.

AIIMS was yet to put out a formal statement. Unconfirmed reports from within AIIMS suggested that Sori is inside and that hospital has constituted a board of doctors of gynaecology, endocrinology and cardiology to examine her health, as the Supreme  Court directed on May 2.

The Chhattisgarh Police brought Sori from Raipur, the state capital, on Wednesday by a 7a.m. flight. Even though they landed in Delhi before noon, they brought her to AIIMS only at 5p.m. and were sent back because admissions at the hospital close at 4p.m.

Since then, Grover said, Sori’s whereabouts are unknown.

A 35-year-old schoolteacher is to be treated at AIIMS under orders from the Supreme Court given May 2.

Rights activist Himamshu Kumar slammed the police as well as AIIMS for violating the Supreme Court order, both in letter and spirit.

“How could the hospital deny admitting a patient in emergency and that, too, on the Supreme Court’s orders?” Kumar asked.

Sori accuses Chhattisgarh Police of brutal torturing her, including putting stones in her private parts, to gain a false confession from her that she belongs to an outlawed Maoist group that is waging a long-running insurgency in the central Indian forests.

In October, the police alleged Sori and a nephew of hers extorted money from an industrial group with interests in Chhattisgarh. The nephew, Kodopi Linga, is in jail.

Sori and her nephew claim the police framed them after they refused to play ball with the police. They claim the police wanted the nephew to pose as a Maoist to trap a contractor with the industrial group into paying him extortion money.

Fearing arrest in her home district of Dantewada in Chhattisgarh, Sori fled to New Delhi, only to be arrested by the police here on October 4.

A Delhi court rejected her bail plea on October 7 and she was taken to Dantewada district, to which she belongs, and jailed. Police failed to produce her in a court on October 10 as they had been ordered. They claimed she was injured after falling in the washroom.

But a video of her shot privately at the government hospital where she was brought appeared to suggest she had been badly tortured. A public outcry forced the police to take her to a government hospital in the neighbouring Jagdalpur city.

When doctors there denied she had been tortured, Sori’s lawyer Grover moved the Supreme Court seeking an order for Sori’s independent examination.

The Supreme Court Sori to be sent to Kolkata for the examination. On December 2, a government hospital in Kolkata reported to the Supreme Court that Sori had indeed been brutally tortured. They said they found “foreign elements” inserted in her private parts.

Grover approached the Supreme Court again last month pleading for her to be treated at AIIMS as Sori had fallen very ill at the Raipur Central Jail, where she was returned.

On May 2, the Supreme Court directed AIIMS to form a special medical board, including experts of gynecology, endocrinology and cardiology, to examine Sori.

The court ordered the AIIMS director to submit the report of the board before July 10.

Sori has three preteen children. They are in Dantewada.

Tribal student at AIIMS hangs self

Durgesh Nandan Jha, TNN | Mar 5, 2012

NEW DELHI: A first-year MBBS student at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, who hailed from a village in Rajasthan and was the second topper in the Scheduled Tribe category at the all-India medical entrance test, allegedly committed suicide by hanging himself from the ceiling fan of his hostel room on Saturday.

Anil Kumar Meena, 22, was reportedly struggling to cope with the English-medium teaching at the institute. His friends and family members alleged that Anil, the son of a tribal farmer in Baran district, had been facing discrimination at the institute due to his rural background and Hindi-medium education.

MBBS students at AIIMS have decided to boycott classes from Monday, demanding the resignation of institute director, Dr R C Deka, over Anil’s death. Anil was depressed for the past few days as he had failed to clear his first-year exams and was to reappear as a fresh candidate for the semester tests starting Monday.

Deputy Commissioner of Police (South) Chaya Sharma said Anil had locked himself up in his hostel room throughout Saturday. “His concerned friends called the security guard and made him look through the room ventilator on Sunday morning. The guard found him hanging. No suicide note was found,” she said.

Sharma said the body had been sent for post mortem and that cops were probing all angles.

Anil had got admission in the 2010-11 batch but he was barred from taking the final exam due to low attendance. He was asked to take supplementary exams three months later in which he failed.

Exam stress: Second suicide at AIIMS in 2 years

Anil Kumar Meena’s friends expressed shock at his suicide. “We played cricket together on Friday afternoon. After that, he also came over to my hostel room in the night to watch a comedy serial. Though he was sad over his poor results, he did not appear suicidal,” said Rajendra Ghunawat, a second-year student who was the first person to inform other hostel mates about Anil not coming out of his room. Ghunawat said he last saw Anil around 2.30am on Saturday when he went to the first floor of the hostel to fetch water.

“He was sitting silently and did not respond to my call. I left thinking he might be sleepy. We did not see him the next day and finally called the guards on Sunday,” he said.Omesh Meena, the victim’s cousin, claimed that the teachers had declared at the last moment that only 50% marks of the main exam will be counted and the rest will be from internal assessment.

“Anil was a bright student. He scored 75% marks in senior secondary school and had second rank in AIPMT 2010 in the ST category. Because he was from a Hindi medium background, he faced problems understanding the lectures. He was also taking private tuitions in English,” he said. “Anil missed a lot of classes in the first year because teachers did not really help him overcome the language barrier and he felt humiliated,” Omesh claimed. AIIMS Students’ Union president Tungish Bansal held the institute director morally responsible for Anil’s death.

“This is the second death of an MBBS student over exam-related issues. Two years ago, a final-year had committed suicide. But no remedial measures have been taken. The director refused to meet the victim despite several attempts made by him over the past 10 days,” said Bansal. Students took out a candlelight march on Sunday evening and gheraoed AIIMS director R C Deka, demanding his resignation. Deka did not respond to TOI’s calls.Rani Kumar, the dean of examinations at AIIMS said there was no caste-based discrimination and the institute had taken several measures like forming a stress management committee to look into problems faced by students.