Health Care at Home conducts self defence training for women employees in collaboration with Delhi Police

New Delhi, August 6 , 2014: Aiming to make its women workforce confident to deal with a crisis situation in the wake of rising incidence of crime against women in Delhi, Health Care at Home (HCAH), India’s first hi-tech, documented, quality homecare service provider, today organised a self defence training session here in association with Delhi Police.
The training, held on the HCAH’s premises, was led by Assistant Sub Inspector Kiran Sethi, a Judo and martial arts expert. She has been leading several such defence training in schools, colleges and corporate houses.
The session saw participation of 200 employees of HCAH, majority of which was women. All the senior and junior women employees took part in the self defence training session.
Health Care at Home is a joint venture between Burman family, promoters of India’s leading natural health care products maker Dabur, and founders of Healthcare at Home, UK. HCAH, a nursing-led company, provides high-end and cost-effective treatments at home for services ranging from cancer care, critical care, palliative care, post-operative care to setting up of supportive ICU, among others.
Women form the majority of HCAH’s workforce, especially nurses who have to be available round the clock for patients.
 “At HCAH our intent is to empower employees. Ensuring their safety is of prime importance to us, especially of that of women. Various measures are taken by the company to make the employees feel safe and secure. The training will further boost their confidence and embolden them to face any untoward situation,” said Vivek Srivastava, Chief Executive Officer, Health Care at Home.
Delhi recorded 3,347 cases of molestation in 2013, up from 653 in the previous year, a rise of over 412%, as per the Delhi Police. Apart from heinous crimes, stalking and eve-teasing are a normal affair in the national capital.
The women employees were provided training on basic self defence techniques, and moves. They were given insights into how to tackle one, two and a gang of people, and which objects to use like keys, deodorants in cases of emergency to defend themselves.
“We are very committed to employees’ safety. All our medical vans and tablets used by our nurses and other staff are GPS-enabled which helps to track them. We also have an IT-based platform to track employees and an emergency response system in place. This makes our employees feel protected. We provide our own cabs to employees and have certified drivers to escort them. All our employees carry pepper sprays provided by company and we have provision for panic alarms too. Also prior to assigning our employees for a home visit, we make it fulfills our safety criteria. Only when it satisfies us, an employees is sent to a patient’s home. The self defence training will further build the confidence of our women employees and we will keep organising such sessions in future as well,” said Gaurav Brahambhat, Head, Operations, Health Care at Home.
Apart from the women employees, skill training was imparted to men employees as well. Besides imparting self defence skills to them, they were also taught on how to save a women in times of crisis and what should they do if they come across any eve-teasing incident. The training session evoked a huge response from the HCAH employees, who very enthusiastically learnt the techniques taught.