Congress activists stage a silent dharna demanding justice for the 23-year-old medical victim who was gangraped on a moving bus in Bhopal. (PTI) Kursi chhodke bhaago is a line. Simhaasan khaali karo ke janataa aati hai was the nara in JP agitation.NEW DELHI, December 26, 2012
DELHI GANG-RAPE
Singapore-bound, borne by a billion prayers
BINDU SHAJAN PERAPPADAN
In a sudden move, the 23-year-old gang-rape victim was shifted from the capital’s Safdarjung Hospital at around 10.30 p.m. on Wednesday and flown out of the country in a special air-ambulance to Singapore.
She was accompanied by her family members and a team of doctors.
The victim will be admitted to Mt. Elizabeth Hospital in the city state, which has a super-speciality multi-organ transplant facility.
The relatively short journey time to Singapore helped in making the decision, sources said.
The government has made arrangements for the family’s stay in Singapore as the treatment is expected to take a while.
Addressing the media late at night, Safdarjung Hospital Medical Superintendent Dr. B. D. Athani said: “The victim is strong but her condition continues to be critical. She had extensive abdominal and intestinal injuries and despite three life-saving operations and best treatment by a team of doctors from Safdarjung, All-India Institute of Medical Sciences and G.B. Pant Hospital, her condition continued to be critical. After evaluation, the team decided that it was best to shift the patient abroad for treatment.”
The patient was shifted out of Safdarjung Hospital amid tight security around 10.30 p.m. Three fully-equipped ambulances were lined up on the hospital premises and one of them moved the patient out. The move came after the patient endured a tough night on Tuesday, with a senior official in the Health Ministry stating that the girl’s condition had deteriorated with her pulse rate dropping considerably, forcing her doctors at Safdarjung Hospital to seek assistance from cardiovascular surgeon Dr. Naresh Trehan and physicians at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) to revive and stabilise the patient.
The official added: “Her pulse rate had suddenly reduced to below 50-per-minute but she was revived.”
Earlier in the day, doctors at Safdarjung Hospital remained tight-lipped about her condition and even skipped the daily routine of issuing a health bulletin. Refusing to give any details about the patient, Dr. Athani, when asked about the girl’s condition in the evening, said: “I don’t know.”
Also, the patient’s family members who were previously talking to the press refused to interact.
The hospital authorities also did not confirm any news about the deterioration in the patient’s condition.
There was much speculation on the patient’s condition on Wednesday after the Safdarjung Hospital Medical Superintendent postponed the routine daily press conference at 4.30 p.m. to 6.30 p.m. There was no briefing at 6.30 p.m. either. Moreover, police presence in and outside the hospital was beefed up.
http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/singaporebound-borne-by-a-billion-prayers/article4242194.ece?homepage=true
Gang-rape victim shifted out of hospital, headed to Singapore
Author: PTI
Published Date: Dec 26, 2012 11:04 PM
Last Updated: Dec 26, 2012 11:57 PM
Girls stage protest against the gang-rape of a 23-year-old girl in Delhi. (PTI photo)The 23-year-old gang-rape victim, who is battling for life for the past 10 days at Safdarjung hospital, was tonight shifted and headed to a hospital in Singapore.
The 23-year-old gang-rape victim, who is battling for life for the past 10 days at Safdarjung hospital, was tonight shifted and headed to a hospital in Singapore.
Safdarjung hospital sources said the physiotherapy student was being shifted to Singapore. The name of the hospital was not known immediately.
Sources said the girl, who is on ventilator support since she was admitted to Safdarjung hospital on December 16 after she was gang-raped in a moving bus in South Delhi, was being taken in a special chartered plane.
PCR vans escorted the ambulance from Safdarjung hospital.
P K Verma, ICU in-charge of Safdarjung hospital, said he cannot make any comments on the matter.
"I will not say anything on this," he said.
Official sources said passport and Singapaore visa for the girl and some of her family members who will accompany her in the air ambulance was handed over to her tonight after it was facilitated by the External Affairs Ministry.
The sources said the Indian High Commission in Singapore has been asked by the government here to render all assistance for the girl.
The sources said it was the decision of doctors attending on her to shift the girl abroad for specialised treatment.
Asked after a Union Cabinet meeting whether the victim could be taken abroad for treatment, Finance Minister P Chidambaram earlier in the day said she is not in a condition to move but it all depends on doctors.
The girl, who was rushed to Safdarjung Hospital on December 16, underwent two major and one minor surgeries in the past 10 days during which major part of intestine was removed.
The victim has been on ventilator for majority of her stay in the hospital, except for two days when she was taken off ventilator and started breating on her own.
Despite the violence that she underwent, the girl was "physcologically fit and sound" with doctors calling her a very brave girl who was concerned about her future.
During her 10-day stay in the ICU of the hospital, the girl was administered plasma-rich platelets and blood to keep her vital parameters stable.
The victim's father said the family has not been informed where the girl is being taken and that they were just told to board the aircraft.
"We don't know anything. We don't know where we are going. All we have been told is we are going abroad. Me, my wife and the entire family is going with her (the girl)," he said. The entire family are being flown to Singapore with the victim.
The condition of the victim deteriorated last night as her pulse rate reduced considerably but it recovered soon.
She, however, continues to be critical but stable, doctors attending on her said today. She continues to be on ventilator support in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU).
The medical bulletin on her health by the doctors at Safdarjung hospital, where she is being treated, was postponed twice as top heart specialists attended on her.
According to sources, her condition had deteriorated late last night as she had suffered from "bradycardia", with her pulse rate reducing, but she recovered within minutes.
Sources said her pulse rate has suddenly reduced to below 50 per minute but recovered within five minutes.
"Her condition continues to be critical but stable," a senior doctor said while confirming her bradycardia condition last night.
Top health specialists, including Naresh Trehan, were attending on the girl and held consultations with the panel of doctors looking into her health condition.
The medical bulletin on the victim's health was to be issued at 4.30 PM but it was postponed to 6.30 PM, only to be put off again by the hospital administration.
Senior health officials, including the Director General of Health Services, held consultation with doctors attending on her.
Sources said the decision to shift the girl to Singapore was taken at the highest level of the government and noted that all necessary travel documents were provided at the shortest possible time.
The Union Health Ministry earlier contacted a hospital in Singapore.
The sources said government will bear all expenses of the girl's treatment in Singapore.
A few doctors are also flying with the girl.
The victim, whom doctors described as "psychologically composed and optimistic about future", had shown signs of improvement during treatment but her condition worsened late last night after her pulse rate plummetted for a brief period.
The paramedical student was gangraped and brutally assaulted allegedly by six youth, including a minor, in a moving bus in south Delhi on December 16 night and her male friend was badly beaten up when he tried to protect her. They had boarded the bus from Munirka area at around 9:15 pm.
Eager to live and see that her rapists punished, she had recorded her statement twice -- first time on December 21 before Sub Divisional Magistrate and December 24 before Metropolitan Magistrate.
The second statement was necessitated after Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit alleged that police "interfered" with the process of recording of victim's statement.
"I want to live...Have they been caught," she had asked her mother.
http://newindianexpress.com/nation/article1395639.ece#
Girl flown to Singapore
OUR BUREAU AND PTI
New Delhi, Dec. 26: The Delhi gang rape victim was flown to a Singapore hospital in an air ambulance late tonight, prompting at least one doctor not involved in her treatment to refer to the difficulties in “practising rational medicine under intense pressure”.
“The girl has been shifted to Mount Elizabeth Hospital in Singapore as it has a multi-organ transplant facility. It is state of the art,” said Safdarjung Hospital medical superintendent B.D. Athani.
Dr Yatin Gupta, the head of the critical care unit (CCU) at Safdarjung Hospital, a team of other doctors and her parents are accompanying the 23-year-old paramedical student.
She was shifted from the Delhi hospital in a Medanta Medicity ambulance. The private chartered air ambulance belonging to ARE Airways, which is equipped with ICU facilities, took off around 11.45pm.
The ground ambulance was followed by a police escort and a vehicle carrying the girl’s parents. A decoy ambulance was also in place.
Sources said the decision to shift the girl to Singapore was taken at the highest level. Athani said that based on the advice of a team of doctors, the government made arrangements for the patient to be shifted.
Cardio-thoracic surgeon Naresh Trehan had a meeting with her team of doctors, after which she was declared fit to fly, the sources said.
Doctors not associated with the victim’s treatment said they were surprised at the suggestion that she was being moved to a Singapore hospital because it had superior facilities for organ transplants.
Daily medical bulletins issued by Safdarjung Hospital over the past week suggested that she had developed infection and life-threatening sepsis that has not been responding to antibiotics.
The girl lost her small intestine and is a candidate for a small intestinal transplant, if she survives her complications from sepsis.
“But, for now, the entire focus should be on controlling infection and providing supportive therapy,” said Subash Gupta, a senior gastrointestinal surgeon in New Delhi, who has no connection with her treatment but has participated in intestine transplants.
“An intestinal transplant is not an emergency operation required now,” he said.
Most government-run and private tertiary care hospitals in India, including Safdarjung Hospital, are expected to have facilities to provide supportive care to patients with sepsis.
“The only reason (for the shift) I can think of is that the doctors who’ve been treating her are under tremendous pressure, enormous visibility and possibly receiving unsolicited advice on how best to treat her... it’s sometimes difficult to practise rational medicine under intense pressure,” Gupta said.
“They’ve done a very good job trying to help her,” he said. “Perhaps the move to Singapore is an attempt to give her the best possible care in a neutral environment.”
Safdarjung’s Athani said the treatment in Singapore could take several weeks. He suggested Singapore was chosen as it was closer from India — less than six hours by air — than destinations in the West.
Official sources said the government would bear the expenses of the girl’s treatment.
Official sources said passports and Singapore visas for the girl and her accompanying relatives were speeded up by the external affairs ministry. The sources said the Indian high commission in Singapore has been asked by the Centre to render all assistance to the family.
Union health minister Ghulam Nabi Azad spoke to experts at home and abroad before zeroing in on Singapore.
Senior doctors at Safdarjung Hospital, where the girl was under treatment since December 16, today cancelled two medical bulletins scheduled at 4.30pm and 6.30pm.
http://www.telegraphindia.com/1121227/jsp/frontpage/story_16367087.jsp#.UNuoguTqmvc
Perhaps for a moment we can set aside the conspiracy theories and just wish this young woman all the luck in this world as she travels to Singapore to a super speciality hospital on a foggy night in Delhi.
On the television, the anchors reassure us that we have the best doctors but we don’t have the best equipment. It’s tragic that a country of a billion people does not have a super speciality hospital and must send this critically injured young woman to Singapore. But then this entire story has been a story of our failings laid bare to us. We learned that very few hospitals in Delhi can provide an ambulance with a ventilator. This young woman has become an unlikely VVIP not because the government is generous with every aam aurat in her situation, but, because it was forced.
But at least it is reassuring that a government that has been so tone deaf and inept seems to have suddenly responded on a war footing to this young woman’s crisis, putting her health before its pride.
People pray outside Safdarjung hospital. Naresh Sharma/ Firstpost
“This was like a preparation for war,” said a news anchor.
And so it was. The secrecy, the conference calls, the rising anxiety over the postponed medical bulletin all played out in front of an increasingly tense nation.
It’s just tragic that it took this kind of a galvanisation of a national outrage and the death of a constable for the government to demonstrate its seriousness of purpose. For the government, the political fallout will not end here with the air ambulance taking off for Singapore, whatever happens there. It will continue to suffer grievously from many self-inflicted wounds because it was not prepared for the level of outrage. But that reckoning can wait for another day.
For the rest of us, we still have to grapple with the fact that it took an assault as gut-wrenchingly brutal as this to shake us out of our torpor. The doctor attending on her said in his 30 years he had not seen a sexual assault as horrendous as this one. A couple of days ago traveling on the Metro I overheard one young man tell another “Have you seen that slogan on Facebook – don’t tell you daughters how to dress, tell you sons how to behave?” His friend said yes, he had seen it on many friends’ pages. It was just a simple conversation but for the first time there was a small sense of something shifting in attitudes, not wholly but in some measure.
For the media, it was a lesson in patience, in following a story because it was the right thing to do, not just the TRPs it would bring. Watching the reporting of the air ambulance taking off it seemed there was a slew of trucks and cameras chasing the ambulance. If so, shame on us. One hopes that the media will show restraint now that it’s clear which hospital in Singapore she is going to.
Over these ten days this young girl had become a symbol, like the candles so many people lit in her name. Now, there is talk of night policing and fast track courts. So much change in the name of a girl who is at this point still nameless.
Will these changes last? Are laws made in the supercharged heat of the emotional moment really good laws? The young woman apparently asked if the men who did this to her had been caught. But will we remember the difference between justice and vengeance?
All those questions and debates don’t end because she has left India. It’s not like we have passed the buck on.
But the questions can wait for another day. For right now after 10 days of being a symbol, she is once more just a patient, a critically ill patient and her health trumps everything else.
In an emotionally shaking scene in the classic Ritwik Ghatak film Meghe Dhaka Tara (The Cloud-capped Star), the young sister in the sanatorium suddenly whirls around and tells her brother “Dada, aami kintu bachtey cheyechhilaam. (But brother, I wanted to live.)”
It’s a breathtaking line, burning with fierce intensity.
This girl has shown that kind of will to live. That’s what impressed her doctors everyday. She had been operated on three times. She had gone into cardiac arrest on Christmas day. But she’s still hanging in there. I won’t say she deserves all the luck in the world because it implies some other victims don’t. But let’s wish her godspeed because in a country where it’s so easy to give up against a recalcitrant unchanging system, she has just refused to give up.
Brother, she wants to live.
http://www.firstpost.com/india/on-a-wing-and-hope-delhi-gangrape-survivor-flown-to-singapore-for-treatment-570070.html