Thiruvananthapuram: A series of instances of abusing COVID-19 patients – including one case of a health department official sexually abusing a woman all night – in recent days has severely dented Kerala’s early image of successfully handling the pandemic.
Kerala chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan and health minister K.K. Shailaja had won wide applause for the manner in which the state had kept the number of COVID-19 patients under control in the early days of the pandemic. The state had reported India’s first case of COVID-19 when a Kerala student from China reached the state on January 30.
See more
- Photos: Thousands of women take part in Attukal Pongala in Kerala despite coronavirus fears
- See how Bollywood reacted to the death of pregnant elephant in Kerala, India
- A week after: A quick look at what transpired after Dubai-Kerala Air India Express passenger plane crash
- Photos: Landslides after heavy rainfall in Kerala's Idukki district in India
The early gloss has now worn off for the state and there are demands for the resignations of Vijayan and Shailaja. Following multiple calls by Opposition leaders for Vijayan to resign, the Bharatiya Janata Party state president K. Surendran demanded health minister Shailaja’s resignation following the abuse of a coronavirus patient by an ambulance driver.
“Such a shocking incident shows the complete failure of the health department,” Surendran said, demanding that Shailaja quit immediately.
The incident happened in the early hours of Sunday when the ambulance driver, identified as Noufal, 29, was taking two women aged 42 and 19 to two different hospitals for COVID-19 treatment. After dropping the elder woman, the driver stopped the ambulance near a bridge and sexually assaulted the teenager. Shockingly, the protocol of health care workers accompanying patients in ambulances was violated.
The victim managed to film her assaulter apologising to her after the heinous act. Police officials said the video would prove a strong evidence against the accused driver. The teenager has since been moved to the Kottayam Medical College. Health minister Shailaja spoke to her mother and consoled her.
Abuse by health inspector
That incident was preceded by a more barbaric act when a junior health inspector, Pradeep Kumar, 44 summoned a woman to his residence on the pretext of having to give her a COVID-negative certificate. When she reached there, he held her captive, tied her up and sexually abused her all night. The incident took place last Thursday.
Before assaulting and abusing her, Kumar had warned her that if she raised an alarm he would file a case against her for violating quarantine protocol.
The 44-year-old woman was later taken for medical tests, in which it was confirmed that she had been sexually assaulted.
Harassment
Meanwhile, another incident of patient abuse that happened in June surfaced on Tuesday. Local media reported that a woman from Dubai who was being taken to a quarantine centre in Pathanamthitta district by ambulance was driven around for four hours by the driver on the pretext that there were no vacant beds in the quarantine centre allotted to her.
The victim told local media that she managed to escape only because she could call up her husband and the local municipal councillor. She said officials had not taken cognizance of the matter despite her complaint.
