Source: All Africa
To make it easy for victims of domestic violence to receive appropriate medical treatment and support, the Ministries of Health and Women and Children Affairs are collaborating with other stakeholders to develop a new Police Medical Referral Form (PMRF).

The new form, when it comes into effect, will address the physical and psychological needs of the victims as well detail vital information on the violence infringed on them.

This has become necessary especially with the enactment of the Domestic Violence (DV) Act 2007 (ACT 732), which provides protection for domestic violence, particularly for women and children.

It is against this backdrop that a one-day workshop was organized in Accra for stakeholders to consult and validate the revised form.

In a speech read for him, the Minister of Health Hon. Yileh Chileh stated that, the MOH, in collaboration with the Ghana Health Services (GHS), tasked an eleven member technical committee to revise the document. This, he said, was part of the process towards implementation of the Health Sector Component of the Domestic Violence Act Policy and Plan of Action

The technical committee comprised representatives of medical doctors, surgeons from the Korle-bu Teaching Hospital, Ridge Hospital, Directors of the Police Criminal Investigation (CID) Department, Policy Planning Monitoring and Evaluation division (PPME) GHS, MOH, Heads of Center for Health Information Management (CHIM)

The committee, the minister's speech noted that a detailed PMRF provided by the police to victims of violence will enable doctor's to best examine and explain in detail, observations made on them and indicate prescribed treatment and medication given or needed for the victim.

The statement added that, "an accurate description of previous conditions and present state of the victims in order to determine measures that will have to be taken to assess the short, medium and long term effects of the alleged abused is also critical".

This, it said, is very important both for the victim as well as the judge for the purpose of prosecution.

The committee, after consulting from several other relevant documents made "relevant inputs taking into consideration the vulnerability, age, physical, psychological and mental state of the victims before and after the violence in redesigning and revising of the police medical referral forms"

On her part the Minister of Women and Children Affairs, Mrs. Juliana Azumah Mensah said, available data revealed an uncomfortably high percentage of women and children who had been subjected to unimaginable forms of violence including rape, defilement, spousal assaults, discriminatory cultural and traditional practices which have over the centuries destroyed their confidence and self esteem.

Mrs. Azumah said, to reverse the trend, government, through the leadership of MOWAC and its partner institutions, has evolved a strategy for implementation through the National Policy and Plan of Action (NPPA), to guide effective coordination and efficient responses in combating domestic violence in the country.

She called on the Ghana Police Service to take pains to study the forms and be conversant with all the tenets and rules, regarding their usage which will be beneficial and helpful to all victims and survivors of violence in our

• Ghana