Healthcare providers sensitised on violence against women

Health professionals, counsellors and social workers at five city hospitals will be trained to provide psychosocial support to women falling victim to violence.

Jayanagar General, KC General, Bowring and Lady Curzon and Gosha are among the city hospitals to provide the service, besides the Chikkaballapur District Hospital and a medical college.

The service will be provided for a year.

“Healthcare providers are often the first contact for women facing any form of violence,” said Dr Arundathi Chandrashekar, director, State National Health Mission.

“Doctors are in a unique position to probe for a history of violence. They are also perceived as non-threatening by patients in general,” she added, pointing out that health professionals are vested by the law to handle medical and legal roles while responding to survivors of violence and are able to provide crucial evidence in cases of violence against women.

Evidence from Dilaasa, a hospital-based crisis centre in Mumbai, revealed that health professionals can symptomatically identify abused women patients if sensitised on the issue of violence against women.

They will also be able to support, treat and refer survivors of abuse to a crisis intervention centre.

“Early identification of abuse survivors by health professionals will encourage women to seek services immediately after the onset of violence,” Dr Arundathi said.

Recently, counsellors from 31 districts of Karnataka attended a two-hour orientation programme online to sensitise them on the needs of survivors of Violence Against Women (VAW). Such a workshop is vital since counsellors are expected to provide crisis counselling.

Training programmes

Healthcare providers also received a five-day training at Arogya Soudha from January 21 to 23, which was followed by a similar event on February 19 and 20.

In all, 43 middle to senior-level healthcare providers were oriented to concepts related to gender sexuality, patriarchy and prevalence of violence in society.

The health professionals were familiarised with national policies on violence and given WHO data demonstrating the role of gender in healthcare.

Doctors were urged to consider the importance of informed consent while examining and treating victims, while they were also given an idea of their role in medico-legal cases.

The workshop also discussed mechanisms to monitor implementation of the pilot project and healthcare providers had been equipped to become trainers through a series of participatory events.

The health professionals who received the training will in turn sensitise their hospital staff and colleagues to identify and respond to VAW, which will be assessed at monthly meetings, monitoring reports and discussions.

Next step

~ Staff of four departments will be trained (obstetrics-gynaecology, general medicine, casualty and psychiatry)

~ Each hospital will have a dedicated counsellor to offer psychosocial support to victims identified by doctors, nurses or counsellors themselves

~ Referral mechanisms with other departments and NGOs offering additional services for victims will be set up — legal, shelter, rehabilitation and vocational training