Fortis Hospital molestation case: It’s rape, cry patient’s family

Bengaluru: The male attendant at Fortis Hospital not only molested the 54-year-old woman dengue patient, who was weak and semiconscious, but also tried to penetrate his finger and rubbed himself against her, the woman’s family members told Deccan Chronicle on Saturday.

“Though technically it is a rape, the police chose to register only a molestation case. We insisted, but the police ignored us,” said her family members, who are now planning to approach the Karnataka State Commission for Women.

Family members of the patient, who was allegedly molested by a male nurse at Fortis Hospital, have lost faith in the police and are now knocking on the doors of Karnataka State Commission for Women for justice.

“We are dissatisfied with the police registering a mere molestation case against the accused when there was much more to the case,” said the victim’s husband. “My wife, despite being admitted for dengue and critically ill in the High Dependency Unit (HDU) at Fortis, was unable to sleep through the entire night as Shivakumar kept approaching her to make his sexual advances.

Read | Male attendant molests dengue patient at Bengaluru's Fortis Hospital

She was shocked and did not know how to react as she was scared, unwell and very tired,” said the husband. “My wife told me that he took his organ and rubbed it against her hands through the supporting rails of her bed. Not only that, he switched off the monitor by my wife’s bed and in the pretext of removing and fixing the leads, he was actually touching her chest,” the husband said adding – Shivakumar then took some cotton swabs and insisted that he wipe her private parts to which my wife refused to allow. He then massaged her legs and put his hands inside her hospital gown and tried to forcibly penetrate her with his finger,” the husband said questioning if this did not amount to rape, that too by a medical attendant on a helpless patient in a hospital of such repute?

It did not stop there – Shivakumar also repeatedly stalked the patient the entire night asking her for her phone number, telling her that he could come over to her house when she was alone and also checking for her number on the hospital records, the husband told Deccan Chronicle. There were eight patients including the victim in the HDU each of them separated by curtains, where most of them are critically ill and in semi-conscious condition.

“There are two attendants including a female staffer along with Shivakumar in the ward. Then why did a male staffer attend to my mother without a female nurse,” asks the victim’s son adding that it is a sheer negligence from the side of the hospital. “All these details were clearly communicated to the police by both my wife in her statement to the police and also by me narrating to them while lodging the complaint, but the police took it merely as a molestation case,” the husband said adding that he was shocked to learn that the accused was out on bail after 10 days of his arrest.

“Without realising the gravity of the incident, the police have conveniently put the section of molestation for reasons best known to them,” said the husband. My wife will speak about the incident on that fateful night at the hospital before the judge and let the judge decide whether it was a mere molestation or something else, he said.