A view of the Mahabodhi Burns Ward at Victoria hospital in Bengaluru.
| Photo Credit: File Photo

Karnataka is set to become the first State in the country to have a separate comprehensive policy for victims of burns. The policy, which will incorporate insurance, housing, rehabilitation, employment and other welfare measures including pension for burn victims, is likely to consider disfigurement due to burns as a disability.

Fulfilling a decades-long demand of women activists, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Friday announced that the State will come out with a burn injury prevention and treatment policy.

A draft policy for prevention and treatment of burns and rehabilitation and empowerment of burn survivors formulated by Aweksha, a women’s trust working to end gender-based violence, has been submitted to the Health Department.

Expert group

Health Minister Dinesh Gundu Rao told The Hindu on Saturday that the  objectives and operational strategies of the policy will be discussed with the women activists and an expert group soon after the State Budget gets approved. “In all probability, the policy should be ready in a month or two,” he said. 

“The policy should not only look at streamlining treatment and providing quality care but should also consider the overall welfare of the burn survivors. The women activists have been demanding that disfigurement due to burns should be considered as a disability. I think this is essential and doable. We will deliberate and formulate a comprehensive policy,” the Health Minister said.

Social stigma

Women’s rights activist and Aweksha co-founder Donna Fernandes said that as burns cause severe disfigurement and disability, the existing provisions for the disabled such as reservations or concessions must be extended to burn victims.

Pointing out that the State help should extend beyond just concessions, she said, “The Victim Compensation Scheme mandates that the victim needs to file an FIR to receive compensation. However, most often survivors do not want to file FIRs due to various reasons. They may not want to complain because of social stigma around reporting one’s spouse, society’s emphasis on protecting the sanctity of marriage or to ensure that their children’s futures, false hope of a happy marriage by the husband are not affected and so on.” 

“However, these survivors are victims of circumstances and hence the only criteria for awarding compensation to women who are survivors of burns should be their admission to a bonafide hospital. The survivors should receive benefits at par with acid attack survivors as the injuries resulting from burns or acid attacks cause the same effects on survivors. Both the injuries are results of destruction of skin and tissues,” she said.

Equitable opportunity

Sathya K., from Aweksha who works with burn patients at the Mahabodhi Burns Ward in Victoria Hospital, said although female admissions at the ward have dropped considerably in the past few years, it is essential to provide an environment equitable in opportunities to heal and capacitate survivors of burns.

“The cause of burns has now shifted from stove burst to gas cylinder leak or burst. However, despite a cylinder burst, strangely only the woman suffers burns and there is no police complaint either,” she said.

“Unlike in the past when we saw women suffering burns immediately after or a few years after marriage, of late we are seeing more middle-aged women, unmarried and female senior citizens getting admitted following burns. The reasons vary from anger and relationship issues, mood swings to loneliness. All of them claim it was an accident,” she said.

“Irrespective of being a suicide, homicide or accident, all burns cases must get reported and acknowledged, in order to bring about sustained change to the current scenario,” she added.