Saving a life is worth zillions of good acts! And Maharashtra is all up for this move!!

The state is updating its Medical syllabus to make it inclusive of prompt actions that are needed when a sexual assault survivor reaches the hospital.

The Times of India has reported that the syllabus of Forensic Medicine and Toxicology for second-year MBBS and MD (forensic medicine) has been changed to ensure that the students get appropriate medical and legal training when it comes to dealing with survivors of sexual assault.

Maharashtra University of Health Sciences (MUHS) is the first University to incorporate these instructions, which were primarily prescribed by the Centre in 2014.

With the introduction of this new guideline, sexual assault victims can directly head to the hospital for the treatment, without undergoing legal obligations, in the first place. Doctors too will treat the patient first, which may include taking the sample, performing the tests and giving an appropriate treatment. There will also be a list of tests and samples for doctors, which will remove the bar of conducting tests that only police required. Along with this, doctors will no longer have to wait for police sanction to perform tests like DNA, sperm, nail clippings, etc

According to Kalidas Chavan, registrar of MUHS, “The new guidelines prescribe a proper list of samples that doctors need to collect. Earlier, the process was not uniform and the doctors collected only those samples that were demanded by the police.”

While the medical assistance will be freely availed to the victims, they will also be given psychological support.

These guidelines encompass the standardization of behavior for the private doctors as well. “While medico-legal examination can be done by private practitioners only at the behest of cops, they have to mandatorily give basic treatment to the survivors. Many doctors are still ignorant about the rules and direct the women to government hospitals,” Chavan added.

Dr. Indrajit Khandekar, in-charge of the Clinical Forensic Medicine Unit at Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Medical Sciences (MGIMS), further said, “For doctors, assault victims were only walking and talking crime scene. Now they have to mandatorily extend psychological support to the victims. All this have to be made known to the medical students to get positive results in court cases too.”