KOCHI: The district child protection officer (DCPO) here has filed a report to the State Child Rights Commission over the alleged torture of a 16-year-old girl survivor of a POCSO case, by inordinately denying medical exam by a gynaecologist at the District Hospital (DH) here. The woman civil police officer accompanying the girl on Friday had raised the issue as the girl was made to wait from 2.30 p.m. till 8.30 p.m. at the Women and Children Hospital of the DH. As soon as news channels started flashing the news, the concerned gynaecologist, Dr Sreeja Chandran, reached the hospital and completed the examination by 11 p.m.
According to the officials associated with the DCPO, now it is up to the commission to take action on the report they have submitted on the issue. The complainant, Youth Congress leader Boban Mattumantha, said there was very less possibility of an action by any of the officials in the case as the doctor concerned is the wife of an additional personal assistant of a minister. “It is not the first time the POCSO case survivors being ill-treated at the DH and complaints were filed earlier as well," he said.
“Even after several complaints on such matters and alleged death due to medical negligence, the DH authorities conducted no internal inquiries." Recently a remand accused, Tijo Jose, had died at the DH and the prisons department filed a complaint of medical negligence. Besides that, no action followed over the death of a patient shifted from Palakkad DH to Thrissur MCH without proper medical care in an ambulance. The stretcher carrying this patient who had suffered severe head injuries in a bike accident was pushed down from the vehicle by the ambulance driver at Thrissur MCH, and he died the next day after surgery. “In all such cases the DH authorities have taken no action,” Mr Bobab said.
