Mail Today Exclusive: Delhi doctors use electric shock to treat homosexuality
A Mail Today investigation exposes Delhi doctors offering to 'cure' homosexuality with hormone therapy, seizure inducing drugs and even electric shocks.
For some doctors in Delhi, homosexuality is a mental illness much like schizophrenia or bipolar disorder, and can be treated for a tidy sum. A Mail Today investigation into the business of 'curing' queer men and women has revealed that even locally well-known licensed doctors have no qualms in using what they call 'conversion therapy'.
Mail Today has visual and audio records of its conversation with the doctors. Conversion therapy is a highly discredited practice which claims to turn homosexuals into heterosexuals in a matter of months. It includes a series of dubious procedures - giving electric shocks or nausea-inducing drugs, prescribing testosterone or talk therapy - which can lead to depression, anxiety, seizures, drug use and suicidal tendencies.
Also read: Why the therapy doesn't work
The practice is stoutly condemned by mainstream health regulatory bodies, both in India and abroad, because of its potentially devastating effects on the lives of gay individuals. International agencies such as the World Health Organisation regard homosexuality as normal variation of human sexuality.
But that doesn't prevent sexologists like Dr. Vinod Raina, who runs 'Safe Hands' in Safdarjung Enclave, from flouting the medical dictum "do no harm". Under his hormone replacement therapy package, he promises "100 per cent cure" for homosexuality. "It is a six- to nine-month contract until the boy gets cured. Some get cured in three months, others take over a year. The complete package costs Rs 1.1 lakh," says Dr. Raina, who claims to be treating patients for the past 15 years. "But you have to pay the cash in advance. We do not accept cheques," he adds.
Citing anecdotal examples from previous "successful" treatments, he dispels concerns about any possible side effects. "There is no side effect. I have cured over 1,000 homosexuals. There was this man, 26-27 years' old, who used to have sex with other guys four to five times a day. His parents and family members were worried about his shameful behaviour and brought him here. After my treatment, he got married in three months and now is a father," Dr. Raina claims.
Fast track cure
He says the number of people approaching him for treatment of homosexuality has gone up after an AIIMS doctor recently committed suicide and blamed her gay husband for her action. "The problem with homosexuals is that they have more female hormones. After taking blood samples, we increase male hormones in them," Dr. Raina says.
He also blames recessive homosexual genes in parents that become dominant in their kids as well as childhood sexual abuse as causes for homosexuality, a theory that finds support from Dr. P.K. Gupta, consultant senior sexologist at Dr. P.K. Gupta's Super Speciality Clinic in Karol Bagh.
Dr. Gupta describes homosexuality as a mental and genetic disorder and believes in exploring evidence of childhood psychological damage before starting the treatment. He is also a member of the Council of Sex Education and Parenthood (International), an organisation that believes in embracing all forms of sexuality non-judgmentally.
"Get the patient here," he says when asked about treatment details on behalf of a patient's worried family members.
"Before treatment, I have to know (patient's) history and find out if he has been abused as a child," says Dr. Gupta. "He will first have to undergo counselling for 15 minutes; charges for which are Rs 4,500. I will ask him several questions to help me decide whether to go for hormonal therapy or psychological therapy. For this, it's very important to evaluate the patient," he says, reassuring that a cure will be in sight in three or four months.
While conversion therapy survivors often recount stories of seizureinducing electric shocks with electrodes attached to their skulls (the last resort in a line of treatments to bring behavioural changes in the brain), therapists Mail Today spoke to denied using electric shock as an option, perhaps in the absence of a real patient.
The closest we came to experiencing the dangers facing homosexuals was at Radha Poly Clinic in Mahipalpur. Tucked inside a narrow concrete lane amid local retailers is Dr. Nagendra Kumar's clinic, a one-storey building resembling in part a chemist shop, though a notice on the wall clearly discourages prospective medicine buyers.
On his official letter head, Dr. Kumar is named as a resident at 'Max Hospital'.
A few minutes into the conversation, he prescribes Oleanz 5mg, a tablet for treating a variety of mental disorders, which can cause serious side effects such as seizures, changes in vision and breathing difficulty, for our fictitious gay relative.
"This is a neuropsychiatric disorder like schizophrenia, mania, bipolar disorder and hysteria. It is a good thing that you have decided to seek a doctor's help. Start the medicine's usage and we will see the effect in time," he says.
Mainstream ire
But how do you notice the effect? "It can be gauged only through observation," Dr. Kumar tells us, listing a series of visual indicators to watch out for. "Keep a watch on what time the patient sleeps, find out if he wakes up in between to stimulate himself or watch pornography, whether he wants to be alone, whether he is afraid/hesitant to talk to women and if he is able to sustain eye contact?all these activities have to be watched," he says.
"If you see at least 20 per cent change (an estimate he revises several times during the conversation before finally settling at 5 per cent), we know we are on the right track. Otherwise we will change the medicine after 10 days," he says nonchalantly.
If the practitioners of modern medicine are treading on a host of ethical and legal issues while attempting to cure homosexuality, their counterparts in alternative medicine such as homeopathy and ayurveda, on the other hand, seem to be operating with absolute impunity and advertising fast-track cure at nominal rates.
At Dr. Dilbag Clinic in Uttam Nagar, homosexuality can be cured in just a month for as little as Rs 2,100! The clinic's website describes homosexuality as the root cause of many "complicated diseases" in future life.
"There is no need for the patient to come here. You can carry the medicine," says Dr. S.P. Singh, resident sexologist. "The advantage with homeopathy is that there is no side effect," he adds. The view is also touted by Dr. S.K. Jain of Karol Bagh-based Burlington Clinic which prescribes ayurvedic medicine as a remedy for homosexuality. He also claims that a patient will be cured with counselling and medicine in a month without any side effect or relapse.
Reacting to the Mail Today expose, mainstream medical bodies and health professionals have expressed shock and strongly condemned the unethical practice.
Dr. Harish Shetty, psychiatrist at L.H. Hiranandani Hospital, Mumbai, says: "Any attempt to convert people with definite sexual orientation is a crime. It is quackery and violation of human rights. There is no evidence to show that any form of therapy can convert a homosexual into a heterosexual or vice versa.
"It is a violation of medical ethics and doctors who engage in such practices can be prosecuted by the medical council. Prescribing medicines without the knowledge of a patient is a crime even if it is under the instigation of parents or family members," Dr Shetty adds.
"It is really sad. People who claim to cure homosexuality are taking the gullible for a ride," says Nimesh G. Desai, Director, Institute of Human Behaviour and Allied Sciences (IHBAS), a neuropsychiatric hospital under the Health Ministry.
"Homosexuality is a variation of human sexuality. It is not a neuropsychiatric disorder," Desai says, adding: "The best way to counter such practices is to increase public awareness and acceptance of homosexuals. To say that those sexually abused as children will turn out to be homosexuals is a fable," he says.
Pulkit Sharma, a Delhi-based clinical psychologist and psychoanalytic therapist, says it is a myth that homosexuality can be cured. "There is absolutely no scientific evidence that any of these treatments will work," he says. Emphasising that the Indian Medical Association (IMA) does not believe in differentiating between genders, its general secretary Dr. K.K. Agarwal adds that doctors have the right to intervene and help if it is a case of forced homosexuality. "The doctors need to decide this on a case-to-case basis," he said.
For its part, the Indian Psychiatric Society (IPS) urges therapists to refrain from diagnosing or tracking the history of homosexuals in an attempt to treat them. "IPS does not regard homosexuality a mental disorder," says its national general secretary N.N. Raju. "As doctors, you should make the homosexuals understand that they are just like any other normal individual."