Acting on a quick and a remedial measure of sorts, the AAP government transferred 26 women nurses posted at Delhi's Tihar prisons hospital, after a woman doctor was allegedly molested by an inmate recently.
The Delhi health department has decided to move the nurses placed with Tihar's prisons hospital to Deen Dayal Upadhyay Hospital. Male staff from the hospital will replace the nurses at Tihar's hospital, according to an order issued by Superintendent (HR-Nursing).
The move, however, has not gone down well with the women nurses who have called for a revoke of the transfer. According to the nurses, safety of women is a matter of concern everywhere in Delhi and if they are not safe where they are currently placed, transferring them to another hospital would hardly solve the purpose.
In a letter to Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal, the nurses had demanded for their transfer orders should be revoked. "At a time when everybody is talking about women empowerment, such steps would shatter their confidence so that they never stand up against the atrocities they are subjected to," the letter stated.
According to them the government should provide them security instead of transferring them elsewhere where can face similar incidents.
A doctor working at the Tihar's prisons hospital had recently complained to the Delhi Commission for Women (DCW) against Gurmeet, a 35-year-old convict serving life sentence for murder, for allegedly molesting her.
The Delhi Commission for Women (DCW) had issued a notice to the Tihar jail authorities, seeking a report on the allegations, with its chief Swati Maliwal shooting off a letter to DG (Prisons) Alok Kumar Verma why the order of DG (Prison) that asks for jail staff to accompany woman doctors visiting male jails was violated.
She had also asked for a detailed report on complaints received by jail authorities from women staff from 2012 and the action taken on them. Asked about the transfers and the nurses' demands for its revocation, Maliwal said she has received the report from the jail authorities and would be able to comment only after studying it, in a few days.
Nurses call for cancellation of order
The government move has drawn the ire of women nurses posted at Tihar, who said that if they are not safe inside the largest complex of prisons in South Asia, where else they will be. In a letter to Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, the nurses had demanded that the transfer orders should be revoked. "If women are not secure inside Tihar prison health care centre, which is the largest complex of prisons in South Asia, where in national capital they will be," the letter said adding that the transfer orders should be revoked.
