Victoria burns ward receives 40% more women than men

BENGALURU: Even before she turned an adult, Jahnavi had learnt a lifetime of lessons.She was married at 17, dealt with harassment and abuse at the hands of her husband, and had two children, both girls, within a couple of years.And when she “failed to give birth to sons“, he husband set her ablaze.
Telling her story during the release of a report linking burn injuries and domestic violence, Jahnavi was strong and self-assured.“But I wasn't always like this. Right from gathering the courage to file a complaint against my husband to standing up on my own two feet, it was an ordeal,“ said Jahnavi, who had to go through extensive treatment and therapy to recover from the injuries. Like Jahnavi, 90,000 women are set on fire by relatives, often husbands or in-laws, every year.
“The number of women being admitted to Victoria Hospital's burns ward is nearly 40% higher than men. On an average, the number of women with severe burn injuries is 20% higher than men,“ Dr Adithya Pradymna, a public health official and member of non-profit Sochara (Society for Community Health Awareness, Research and Action), who released a report on a gender-based analysis of burns epidemiology in Bengaluru on Thursday. “It is impossible to rule out the fact that most of these women have had a history of domestic violence and more so because they have given birth to girls, not boys,“ he said.
His report, Surviving Burns with Care, is based on the work done by women's rights forum Vimochana, which works at Victoria Hospital's burns ward, which receives nearly 90% of all burns cases in the city . According to the report, 71% of the women patients died of burn injuries compared to 38% men and 17% children. Burns is the single largest cause of death among women between ages of 15 and 34, it notes.
Sathya K, who has been working in the burns ward since 1998 as part of Vimochana, said, “At first the women would tell us that it was a stove explosion and an accident, not a deliberate act of hurting them. Only after we spent time with them would we realize that an accident was not the cause. Domestic violence is one of the biggest contributors to burn accidents.“
Report recommendations
The report offers recommendations on technical interventions for accidental burns, burns care services, procedural suggestions and societal intervention. The report also notes that the number of burns cases has increased by 28% over the past few years but the number of beds for treatment remains the same.