El CECOVA requested a extra effort ” nursing professionals for detect symptoms of macho violence ”.
José Antonio Avila stressed that the role of advice and assistance of professionals in health care, judicial or police level that caring for the victims at first is key ”.
Valencia, 2011-December The Valencia Council of nursing (CECOVA) and the colleges of nursing in Valencia, Castellón and Alicante urged all health professionals, on the eve of the world day against gender violence eradication, to make an additional effort in his job to step up surveillance on the symptoms of sexist violence in the victims when they come to receive health care in order to detect possible hidden cases and achieve well an early diagnosis to prevent them ”.
In this sense, nurses should play a role ” in the fight for the eradication of gender-based violence is the collective nurse a privileged observer ” since of nursing professionals who are the first to come into contact with victims, and as such must make a decisive contribution in the fight for the eradication of this social scourge and that the conduct of the perpetrator is not unpunished ”.
The President of the CECOVA, José Antonio Avila Olivares, said that often behind depressive paintings of a diagnosis of stress or anxiety episodes treated in health centres and hospitals in the Valencia region hide serious cases of psychological abuse, situations of verbal violence or physical assaults against women, which we are obliged to uncover, but also to denounce or to encourage reporting so that the perpetrator is duly punished and away from the victim ”.
Ãvila recalled the importance of denouncing abusers ”, recalled, seven out of ten women killed had not previously reported their partners ” and assured that the death of victims of domestic violence remains one of the most serious problems of Spanish society ”. And half a million women in Spain sometime in their life has been victim of sexist violence and it is estimated that there are some 400,000 who are abused today, according to the Observatory against domestic violence and gender.
In this regard, the President of the CECOVA recalled that many women don’t report by fear or disinformation ” and highlighted the case of women immigrants, said do not know where to go or how to act, especially those that are in an irregular situation, that they are afraid of being expelled and therefore do not report aggressions ”. In these cases and in many others the role of advice and assistance of professionals in the health, judicial or police area that serve them in the first place is key to abort a situation of physical or verbal violence ”, said.
An average of five years until the complaint
In this regard, the President of the CECOVA explained that will welcome any help to the victims ” because, as recalled, recent studies show that since the victim begins to suffer ill treatment, insults and harassment unless it decides to bring a complaint spend an average of five years ” and, for this reason, too many times, the complaint before the courts or before the police arrive too late ”. In that connection, recalled that 60% of the murderers of women during the past year had issued a restraining order from his victims who failed ”.
Finally, Ãvila said that of nursing has a special sensitivity on this issue since over 80% of 25,000 professionals in nursing of the Valencian Community are women ” and therefore is a particularly sensitive and sensitized collective social evil and the consequences of gender-based violence ”. Therefore, as nurses are required to detect the symptoms of harassment or violence in the home when a woman comes to a health centre or a hospital with symptoms of spousal violence. It is our responsibility to help early diagnosis and reporting of any situation of danger to the integrity of the attacked person ”, said Avila.
