Thirty four-year-old Pushpa underwent 10 surgeries to reconstruct her face and neck after she suffered extensive burns while cooking at home. She may have learnt to deal with the physical disfigurement she suffered, but the emotional trauma of slight she suffers at the hands of her own brothers seems to pain her more.
From a young 16-year-old girl who suffered burns in 1997, Pushpa had come a long way, thanks to Mohan Krishna, the then Head of Department, Plastic Surgery, Gandhi Hospital. Supported by the hospital doctors and nurses, today she ekes out living through tailoring and supports her old parents. But her own brothers, apparently, neither offer her moral support nor financial assistance and do not even want to part with her share of property as she is not married.
“It was Gandhi Hospital and Dr. Mohan Krishna who gave me a second life and supported me throughout to be able to live on my own,” she said, sharing her experience on the sidelines of the Round Table on Burn Survivors. But not all the burn survivors are fortunate enough to get such help to rebuild their life.
The International Foundation for Crime Prevention and Victim Care (PCVC), a Chennai-based non-profit organisation backed by the British Deputy High Commission, Chennai, organised the Round Table here on Wednesday to address the need for a holistic support system for women burn survivors in Telangana.
Prasanna Gettu, CEO, PCVC, said there were all kinds of scenarios — women driven to set themselves ablaze on an impulse in a fit of rage. There may be accidents, but most of the burn cases were the result of domestic violence. Citing a study conducted by them in Chennai Kilpauk Hospital, she said of 100 to 150 women who come to the burns ward, 90 % of them are the victims of domestic violence.
Yet many of them refuse to blame their spouses or family members. “What will happen to my children” and such umpteen things run in their mind and they refrain from reporting the domestic violence, she said.
Andrew MacAllister, British Deputy High Commissioner, said early information and dying declaration were critical to file a criminal case, also to get compensation for treatment and rehabilitation of the victim. He raised an important question of whether the State legal authorities can work with hospitals and inform women survivors of legal and socio-economic consequences before they disguise a crime as an accident.
