Soiled sheets, torn gown greet minor

Soiled sheets, torn gown greet minor
Preetu Nair, TNN

PANAJI: The ugly side of Goa Medical College and Hospital was once again exposed when the ten-year-old victim of child abuse was admitted on
Saturday. She was given soiled sheets and a torn gown to wear, until members of the Goa State Commission for Protection of Child Rights intervened on Monday.

GSCPCR chairperson Sameera Kazi said, “When we visited the girl in hospital on Monday, we saw that she had been given a soiled bedsheet and a dirty and torn gown to wear. We directed the nurse to take care of the minor and change the soiled clothes, which they did after some initial reluctance.”

According to sources, the girl spent the forst night in the soiled clothes in which she was brought to hospital by the police. It was only on Sunday that she was given a dirty and torn gown at GMC.

Incidentally, health minister Vishwajit Rane has often stressed that adequate arrangements should be made to ensure that patients are not given soiled sheets or torn gowns.

Reacting to the treatment meted out to the child, Rane said, “I am shocked. I am told by the joint director accounts that 6,000 plus bed sheets have been sent to GMC on Monday. I will look into the matter.”

When contacted, GMC medical superintendent Dr Rajan Kunkolienkar said, “I have personally ensured that she is given the best care possible. To provide better care and ensure that visitors don’t disturb her, we are shifting her to a private room.”

Sources said that when at first Kazi confronted the room nurse about the soiled sheets, the duty nurse insisted that the sheets were changed regularly. But the child revealed that it had not been changed since the time she had been brought to the hospital.

Kazi told TOI, “We were told that the staff was applying medicine on her. But when I opened the silver tube, we found that the seal had not been broken.” Interestingly, the doctor treating the minor has asked NGO Scan to purchase the silver
X tube and an injection as the same was not available in the hospital.

The GSCPCR recorded the girl’s statement on Tuesday evening and will conduct a separate inquiry in the incident of child abuse.

29 July, 2009, The Times of India, Goa edition