Flashback 2015: Work on making Aruna’s room a crisis centre yet to begin
As soon as you enter the 250-square-foot room on the ground floor of ward number 4 of KEM Hospital, a notice on the board greets you saying, “This is Aruna Shanbaug’s room’. Indeed, a semi-comatose, cortically blind Aruna spent 42 years of her tragic life, bed-ridden in this room, after she was inhumanly raped and violated by a former KEM ward boy. Finally, on May 18 this year, she succumbed to her untold suffering. The room became a poignant reminder of her struggle and similar hardships that many other rape victims like her might have endured.
As a mark of respect, the state government, in September this year, announced that the room would be made part of a 1,000 square foot open crisis centre. However, when The Asian Age paid a visit to the ward just the other day, we found that nothing had moved since the announcement.
Commenting on it, dean of the hospital, Dr Avinash Supe, said, “It is a big project that will take some time to be completed. The tender has been passed and it will be completed within six months.”
“We already have a rape crisis centre but we want to renovate it further to make it bigger. We will have forensic examiners, gynaecologists, pediatricians, psychiatrists, social support advocates and police officers to help women in need. We are not calling it a rape crisis centre but a one-point-stop-centre,” said Dr Supe.
According to information provided by the municipal corporation, the centre will have advanced technology. “Many a time, due to lack of advanced technology, the investigation is affected and the case delayed. This laboratory will help in quicker and better investigation of sexual harassment cases,” said a doctor from the forensic department of the hospital.
Medical experts practising at the hospital, however, are doubtful about proper implementation of the plan. A doctor from KEM Hospital said, “Women and Child Development had put up some guidelines while setting up the centre in hospitals. This was declared in 2014. Since then, just as namesake, we are running this centre but it doesn’t really qualify. We cannot provide all medical facilities at the same place to a rape victim. Till date, a rape victim has to move from one department to another though there is a person to guide her. Now, they are planning to extend it further, including Aruna’s room. But I doubt it will get implemented properly.”
The Centre has provided Rs 45.88 lakh from the Nirbhaya fund to Maharashtra to establish the centre. As per the plan, they will integrate all helpline numbers, including the women’s helpline number 181. Welcoming the move to include Aruna’s room in the centre, Anita Vyas, one of the nurses who took care of Aruna, said, “Aruna was a strong woman who did not give up till the last moment. This centre will help many such women in their fight.”
Aruna suffered serious injuries to her spine, while she was strangulated with a dog chain that cut off oxygen supply to her brain, putting her in a vegetative state for the rest of her life. She was completely dependent on the medical staff that took care of her for 42 years.
As per data with Praja, an NGO working for social development, there has been an almost 400 per cent rise in rape cases in Mumbai. In 2010, 165 cases were reported, which rose to 643 in 2014.
