Chairperson of Jharkhand State Commission for Women (JSCW), Kalyani Sharan on Tuesday directed civil surgeons and jail superintendents of all the districts to improve the facilities for women in jails and hospitals.
Sharan said, “I had visited the hospitals and prisons in all the districts in the last few months under our programme, Commission Aapke Dwar. A lot of discrepancies were found including lack of proper hygiene and sanitation facilities. Keeping this in mind we called a meeting with the civil surgeons and jail superintendents to discuss the issues.”
The major issues that came to light in prisons were over crowded wards, water and toilet issues, power crisis and lack of skill development facilities. "30 women were kept in a ward having the capacity of 10 at some prisons.
Also in some prison there was no skill development facility to help women get back in main stream after completing their term," Sharan said.
She also said that commission would advocate having a separate campus for women prison instead of the current arrangement of both men and women prison being in the same campus.
In hospitals, the problems included lack of clean bed sheets and blankets and poor hygiene among many other problems. “The biggest issue I saw was that in delivery wards, the nurses would collect Rs 1,000 from the family if a boy is born and Rs 700 if a girl is born. This, not being the part of the medical expenses,” Sharan said.
The commission has directed the civil surgeons and jail superintendents to improve the facilities and submitted a report to the commission soon.
“Our next meeting will be with the officers in charge of women’s police station of all the districts. We have been getting many complaints about OCs not registering complains or asking for money to settle down matters. These issues will be addressed and we will also ask them to submit a report on case disposal,” the chairperson said.