Families stay together – in celebration and tragedy. But this couple and their 15-year-old daughter are also bound by the experience of immense physical pain.
The father, a 60-year-old man has chemical burns on his upper torso. The mother has 14 % chemical burns that run across her torso and arms. And the daughter has 99% burns on her face, and 55 % burns on her body.
The cornea of the 15-year-old’s right eye has melted and she will probably never be able to see again.
What’s most upsetting is that the maximum damage has happened to my sister, their daughter, who is an innocent 15-year-old. My parents say that their pain is less compared to that of their daughter’s. They wish that what has happened to my sister happened to them.Brother of Acid Attack Victim
The girl has been battling for her life in the ICU ward of Indraprastha Apollo hospital for the last month. But hospitals were allegedly reluctant to treat the wounded teenager until they were forced to.
Hospitals: ‘Reluctant’ To Treat?
The Delhi Commission for Women (DCW) chairperson Swati Maliwal on Monday wrote to Health Minister Satyendar Jain seeking punitive action against Indraprastha Apollo Hospital, Jasola and the Army R&R Hospital for allegedly denying admission to the young girl when the family approached them on September 29 at 10 am.
Army R&R Hospital, as The Quint has learned, said they denied admission to the girl as she was not a direct ‘dependent’ of a serving personnel. The hospital, in its reply to the commission, however, stated that the victim was given an option of getting admission as a non-entitled case. Strangely, that wasn’t mentioned in writing when the admission was denied.
In April this year, the Supreme Court directed private hospitals to provide free treatment, including specialised surgeries, to acid attack victims and asked government authorities to take action against them if they failed to comply with the order.
When we came to Indraprastha Apollo hospital, we had to wait here, too, for 3-4 hours, as the authorities said there is no bed… One of the younger doctors even asked us to pay 3 lakh rupees upfront.While we were leaving the hospital to go to another, Safdarjung Hospital, on the way we got a call from Swati Maliwal, DCW Chief who requested us to get the victim back to Apollo hospital… She hauled up the authorities, and even after that we had to wait for yet another 2-3 hours, then they took her to the emergency ward and the treatment began. It has been going okay since.Brother of Acid Attack Victim
Indraprastha Apollo Hospital, in its reply to the commission, accepted that the victim was made to wait in the ambulance for four hours. But the hospital has refuted allegations that the patient was denied treatment and that money was demanded from her.
An Old Feud
It happened on September 8. We had some old feud with our neighbours over property. We were getting some construction done at home, and they were saying they won’t allow construction… We began the construction anyway and then a gang of men (the family suspects they were sent by the families with whom they had been having a feud) came at night, we don’t know who came but... they came at night at about 12 am and did this to us when our daughter and we were sleeping on the terrace.Mother of Acid Attack Victim
The mother still curses the moment when her daughter said she would sleep with her on her bed on the terrace that fateful night (sleeping on the terrace under a mosquito net is a commonplace thing in Indian villages). The uninvited guests who came that night threw acid on everyone present at the time.
While the daughter is lying in the ward of her hospital, unable to speak, she still signals her mother to come and sit next to her for hours. The doctors ask, “What will your mother do by standing next to you.”
For her mother, this rings painfully true, even for that night when she couldn’t do anything as her daughter slept next to her.
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