New Delhi: As many as four women who attended the double puncture laparoscopy sterilisation camp at a government hospital in Telangana’s Ranga Reddy district have succumbed to various complications arising out the surgery.
In all, 34 women had undergone sterilisation at the Community Health Centre (CHC), Ibrahimpatnam. The four women died on August 25, a report in Hindustan Times, citing health officials, said.
After undergoing the procedure, the four women had reportedly complained of symptoms related to acute gastroenteritis and were admitted to private hospitals for treatment.
The deceased were identified as Mylaram Sushma (26) of Lingampalli village of Manchala block, N. Mamatha (25) of Narsaipalli village of Madgul block, Mounika (26) of Kolukulapalli thanda and Avutharam Lavanya (27) of Sitarampet village.
Two deaths were confirmed by the government on August 29, and the other two on Tuesday (August 30).
The relatives of the women have protested against alleged medical negligence, following which the state government has ordered a comprehensive inquiry into the tragedy.
“We are waiting for a complete post-mortem report. If it was gastroenteritis and sepsis, we will have to look into the water consumed after the procedure. We will also look into whether it could’ve been a fault with the equipment, if there was an issue with the surgeon’s technique, which injured other organs, etc,” director of public health G. Srinivasa Rao told the News Minute.
Rao told Hindustan Times that as a common practice, such sterilisation camps are conducted across Telangana every month; however, very rarely such incidents of botched up surgeries take place.
He added that a committee of experts headed by him will submit a report to the government in seven days.
He also said that the medical superintendent of Ibrahimpatnam CHC has been placed under lifetime suspension. Meanwhile, the medical licence of the doctor who performed the surgery on the four deceased women has been temporarily cancelled.
The state government has announced an ex-gratia of Rs 5 lakh and a double-bedroom house under the government’s housing scheme for the families of the deceased, Rao told the media. The government has also offered to bear expenses for education of the children of the deceased women.
On analysing sterilisation trends in India, data shows that the burden of family planning mostly falls on women. For instance, female sterilisation (tubectomy) is almost ten times higher than male sterilisation (vasectomy) in the country.
As per the National Family Health Survey (NFHS)-5, 37.9% of women use sterilisation to prevent unwanted pregnancies, much higher than non-surgical methods like pills (5.1%), injectables (0.6%), condoms (9.5%), IUDs, or intrauterine device (2.1%) or even male sterilisation (0.3%).
The NFHS report adds that southern states/Union Territories like Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Tamil Nadu, Puducherry and Karnataka lead in female sterilisation with more than 50% coverage. However, this is barely matched by the abysmally poor involvement of male counterparts. The Wire
