Ouch...............
Circumcision ceremony goes horribly wrong
PAUL TOOHEY
January 11th, 2010
THREE teenage Aboriginal boys turned up in the grounds of the bush hospital on December 30. They stood outside with blood pouring down their legs.
They were too embarrassed to go inside, fearing they would encounter a female nurse or doctor.
They had just been through a circumcision ceremony in a camp outside Tennant Creek, 500km north of Alice Springs.
It had gone badly wrong. The boys, who had received no anaesthetic, were left mutilated by elders who it is suspected were drinking when they performed the initiation ritual.
The Northern Territory Health Department confirmed the boys had presented with severe lacerations but refused to give the ages of the teenagers.
News Ltd understands the boys were 16 or under, which should have prompted the hospital to report the incident to police as a possible case of child abuse. Police were not told.
The three boys were hospitalised for three nights before being released back into the community.
The bungled circumcisions have only now come to light because a woman - the wife of a cattle station manager - had been at the hospital with a sick child.
The woman had let her two children play just outside the hospital's doors while awaiting a doctor. The kids started throwing pebbles at each other. Then it was noticed the rocks were covered in congealed blood.
Hospital staff cleaned up the children, destroyed one of their sets of clothing, and tested the blood on the children for disease. The children will continue to be monitored.
"There are two issues here," said the woman, who asked not be named in order to protect her children's identity, while demanding a Territory Health Department investigation.
"One is the nature of these circumcisions, which seem brutal, the other is the health of my children.
"The blood was right outside the hospital door, near a cement pad where the ambulance pulls up. They should have cleaned it up."
In the right circumstances, circumcision ceremonies are carefully controlled. Women sing goodbye to their boys throughout the night and then depart to let the men perform the cutting, after which the boys emerge as men.
But Tennant Creek, a largely indigenous town, is awash with alcohol. There are concerns as well that young men are being snatched by elders and forced to go through the procedure against their will.
One witness who declined to be named said on the morning the three boys presented in hospital, he had seen a young man running for his life through the streets of Tennant Creek.
The boy had been picked up by elders and was in the queue for the cut.
"This young fella escaped and took off and was running through town," said the witness.
"This painted-up bloke was racing after him and a Toyota was cruising around looking for the boy as well. I think they grabbed him.
"I'm not sure if he was one of the three (who were mutilated)."
Jeff Warner, director of Tennant Creek's Anyinginyi Health Aboriginal Corporation, said the circumcisions took place in a makeshift bush camp out of Tennant Creek.
"Speaking to people around town, they're saying its common knowledge that there was alcohol in the camp at the time," he said.
He asked an elder who had attended the ceremony, who denied it.
Circumcision ceremony goes horribly wrong | Northern Territory News | Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia | ntnews.com.au