NEW DELHI: The Delhi Police has booked a senior nursing officer at Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital under various sections of Medicare Services Persons and Medicare Service Institutions Act 2008 and the IPC for assaulting a head of department at the institute. The nurse has also lodged counter-complaints with the RML administration where she claims of sexual harassment of her daughter that she allegedly faced during her internship at the institute.
According to the FIR accessed by this newspaper, the HoD (psychiatry), Meena Dahiya, has alleged that she was slapped by Sister Meena Dahiya on August 4. “Sister Dahiya first approached the clinical psychology regarding her daughter’s internship on August 2. Even as the daughter had her college’s letter of recommendation for internship from July 1-August 1, she was given approval by the hospital for her internship from August 1,” the FIR read.
According to Chandra’s complaint, she had advised Dahiya to get the date rectified but when she met her on August 4, the latter slapped and threatened to assault her further. However, a document accessed by this newspaper showed that Dahiya’s daughter was allowed to do an internship from August 1 by the institute which Chandra claimed in the FIR for ‘rectification’ and mentioned as a provocation.
The hospital has put Dahiya under suspension. However, the nurse has claimed that the FIR is bogus and accused the RML administration of carrying out an unfair probe before suspending her from the job.
The nurses’ family has accused the HoD of acting on vendetta since the nurse raised a matter of sexual harassment faced by her daughter from a staff member posted in Chandra’s department. On the claim of Chandra, Dahiya and her daughter stated that the rectification sought by Chandra was already provided. Despite that, the HoD was not allowing her to do an internship which led to the altercation. They also contested the allegation of physical assault mentioned in the FIR.
On suspension, Dahiya said that she was admitted to the ICU on the day of the incident after allegedly facing “extreme humiliation” from the HoD. She accused the administration of not recording her version before issuing the suspension order dated August 5 which she received on Monday after being discharged.
Chandra refused to speak on the incident when contacted. However, talking to this newspaper, Dahiya’s family said that the hospital administration did a biased inquiry into the matter as the nurse was not in a position to defend herself against accusations leveled at her.
The nurses association of the hospital has demanded a fair probe into the matter. Our association demands a fair and unbiased inquiry in this regard and a just verdict,” said Arun GS, president, RML nurses association.