Delhi gang-rape survivor reaches Singapore

Mangalore Today/ NDTV

New Delhi, Dec 26: The 23-year-old medical student who had been fighting for her life in a Delhi hospital since she was raped by six men on a moving bus earlier this month, has reached the super-specialty Mount Elizabeth Hospital in Singapore.
 
She was flown out of India last night along with her parents and senior doctors on a highly-advanced air ambulance fitted with ICU facilities. The government had organised visas and passports for the patient and her family earlier on Wednesday.

 

 

 

Sources say the hope is to arrange an organ transplant for her at the Singapore hospital, which has multi-organ transplant facilities and is equipped to deal with trauma and serious medical complications. Large parts of the young woman’s intestines were removed as a result of the injuries from the monstrous attack she endured.


The government decided to fly Amanat (NOT her real name) out of the country for treatment after doctors, including Naresh Trehan of Medanta Medicity Gurgaon, assessed her medical condition. The Medical Superintendent of Safdarjung Hospital - where she was taken by the police on the night of the brutal attack and where she was being treated in the Intensive Care Unit since - said in a statement last night that, "She had suffered multiple intestinal and abdominal injuries during the attack. Experienced doctors from AIIMS, GB Panth Hospital and Safdarjung Hospital were giving her the best possible treatment here...Based on the advice of expert doctors, the government has decide to shift her abroad."
 
Dr Trehan and his Medanta colleague Dr Yatin Mehta are now supervising Amanat’s treatment and accompanied her last night to Singapore, which was also chosen for its proximity to India as it required minimum travel; the air ambulance took five hours to reach Singapore. The hospital she has been taken to had recently treated superstar Rajinikanth for renal failure. Politician Amar Singh had a successful kidney transplant there in 2009.
 
The student has been the focus of India’s attention and prayers for several days. She has left India amid seething public fury.
 
Huge protests in Delhi over the weekend were scarred by outbursts of violence. A constable trying to control the crowd died in hospital on Tuesday. Confusion over whether he died as a result of his injuries created a new wave of tension.
 
The government, which has mishandled the protests on multiple fronts, eventually announced that an expert team of judges will review criminal laws to consider enhanced punishment for sexual assault crimes.