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Author Topic: Indian women die after mass sterilisation at government-run camp  (Read 14534 times)
Kairi
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Posts: 99


« on: November 11, 2014, 11:34:22 AM »

Indian women die after mass sterilisation at government-run camp
Jason Burke in Delhi and agencies
Tuesday 11 November 2014 10.36 GMT


Eight women have died in India and dozens more are in hospital, with 10 in a critical condition, after a state-run mass sterilisation campaign went tragically wrong.

More than 80 women underwent surgery for laparoscopic tubectomies at a free government-run camp in the central state of Chhattisgarh on Saturday. Of these, about 60 fell ill shortly afterwards, officials in the state said.

Such camps are held regularly across India as part of a long-running effort to control the emerging economic power’s booming population.

“Reports of a drop in pulse, vomiting and other ailments started pouring in on Monday from the women who underwent surgery,” Sonmani Borah, the commissioner for Bilaspur district where the camp was held, told AFP news agency. “Since Monday eight women have died and 64 are in various hospitals.”

Four doctors have been suspended and police have registered a criminal complaint. Television footage showed women on stretchers being rushed into hospital with anxious relatives by their side.

Borah said authorities would investigate the incident, which took place at the government-run Nemi Chand hospital in the Pendari area of Bilaspur, 69 miles (110km) from state capital Raipur. The chief minister of Chhattisgarh, one of India’s poorest states, has ordered an investigation.

Deaths due to sterilisation are not a new problem in India, where more than four million of the operations were performed in 2013-14, according to the government.

Between 2009 and 2012, the government paid compensation for 568 deaths resulting from sterilisation, the health ministry said in an answer to a parliamentary question two years ago.

Authorities in eastern India came under fire last year after a news channel unearthed footage showing scores of women dumped unconscious in a field following a mass sterilisation.

The women had all undergone surgical procedures at a hospital that local officials said was not equipped to accommodate such a large number of patients.

The Indian Express daily said the operations in Chhattisgarh were carried out by a single doctor and his assistant in about five hours. “There was no negligence. He is a senior doctor. We will probe [the incident],” the chief medical officer of Bilaspur, RK Bhange, told the newspaper.

So-called “sterilisation camps” are held in Chhattisgarh between October and February as part of a larger programme to control India’s 1.26 billion population. Women who go through the surgery are given 1,400 rupees (£14) by the state.

Local governments in India often offer incentives such as cars and electrical goods to women volunteering for sterilisation.

Government-imposed quotas and financial incentives for doctors also contribute to problems, encouraging officials to botch preparations or rush procedures. Medicine within the public health system in India is often badly prepared, with varying dosages, or is out of date. Basics such as disinfectant are in short supply and are watered down to save money. Corruption is rife in the sector.

Health advocates worry that paying women to undergo sterilisation at family planning camps is dangerous and, by default, limits their contraceptive choices.

India’s family planning programme has traditionally focused on women, and experts say that male sterilisation is still not accepted socially.

“The payment is a form of coercion, especially when you are dealing with marginalised communities,” said Kerry McBroom, director of the Reproductive Rights Initiative at the Human Rights Law Network in New Delhi.

Pratap Singh, commissioner of Chhattisgarh’s department of health and family welfare, told Reuters that the state’s sterilisation programme was voluntary.

The state government has already announced compensation packages of 200,000 rupees for the families of the women who died and 50,000 rupees for those hospitalised. Payments are customary in such cases in India.

Two years ago, the police in the eastern Indian state of Bihar arrested three men after they performed botched sterilisation surgery without anaesthetic on 53 women over two hours in a field.

Politicians in the state are campaigning against “quacks and fake doctors” whom they accuse of causing many deaths. In a recent incident, a one-year-old girl died after an unqualified doctor operated on her with a kitchen knife.

No government has successfully formulated policies to manage India’s population growth which stands at 1.6% a year, down from a high of about 2.3% in the 1970s.

That decade saw aggressive sterilisation campaigns which have stigmatised family planning ever since. India is currently forecast to become the world’s most populous nation in 2030, with numbers approaching 1.5 billion.

India was the first country in the world to introduce a population control policy in the 1950s, and has missed successive objectives ever since.

Though large numbers of young people can be an economic advantage, a combination of unfulfilled aspirations, scarce land and water, overcrowding in growing cities as well as inadequate infrastructure, could lead to social tensions and political instability.

One major problem is a gender imbalance, a result of selective abortion of girls. In some communities there are fewer than eight women for every 10 men, with ratio skewed even further among younger people.

A 2012 report by Human Rights Watch urged the government to set up an independent grievance redress system to allow people to report coercion and poor quality services at sterilisation centres. It also said the government should prioritise training for male government workers to provide men with information and counselling about contraceptive choices, but despite the recommendations to the government, problems persist on the ground.

The UN has expressed concern at the deaths. “If the facts are confirmed, then a grave human tragedy has occurred,” said Kate Gilmore, deputy executive director of the UN Population Fund. “Where there is deviation from clinical standards, there must be consequences.”

Additional reporting by Manoj Chaurasia, Patna

Source - http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/nov/11/indian-women-die-mass-sterilisation-camp?CMP=twt_gu
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Kairi
KS
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Posts: 99


« Reply #1 on: November 11, 2014, 11:36:51 AM »

TEN INDIAN WOMEN DIE, DOZENS SICK AFTER MASS STERILISATION

Ten women have died in India and dozens more are in hospital, some in a critical condition, after a state-run programme that pays women to undergo sterilisation went badly wrong, officials said Tuesday.

Sterilisation is one of the most popular methods of family planning in India, where the government provides cash and other incentives to try to control the country's billion-plus population, but rights groups say the system is often abused.

More than 60 women fell ill after undergoing the surgery over the weekend in the central state of Chhattisgarh, and 10 have now died, local official Sonmani Borah told AFP.

"With two more deaths reported today (Tuesday), the death toll in the family planning operation-related case has gone up to 10,″ Borah told AFP by phone.

Around 80 women had the procedure at the local government-run sterilisation camp.

The women suffered vomiting and a dramatic fall in blood pressure, said Borah, the commissioner for Bilaspur district, where the camp was held.

It was not immediately clear what caused the deaths, but doctors in the state told AFP the women's symptoms suggest the drugs they were given after the relatively simple procedure may have been the cause.

State governments in India frequently organise mass sterilisation camps under a national programme whereby women are given 1,400 rupees ($23) as an incentive to have the operation.

Under pressure to meet targets, some local governments also offer other incentives such as cars and electrical goods to couples volunteering for sterilisation.

Although the surgery is voluntary, rights groups say the target-driven nature of the programme has led to women being coerced into being sterilised, often in inadequate medical facilities.

Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Raman Singh suspended four top health officials over the deaths, while a police complaint was lodged against the surgeon who performed the operations.

Singh also announced compensation of 400,000 rupees ($6,500) for each of the families of those women who died.

 Focus on women -

Angry residents took to the streets of Bilaspur where many of the women have been hospitalised demanding action against those responsible.

The women had undergone laparoscopic sterilisation, a process in which the fallopian tubes are blocked, usually under general anaesthesia.

The Indian Express daily said the surgeries were carried out by one doctor and his assistant in around five hours.

"There was no negligence. He is a senior doctor. We will probe (the incident)," the chief medical officer of Bilaspur R.K. Bhange told the newspaper.

Last year, authorities in eastern India came under fire after a news channel unearthed footage showing scores of women dumped unconscious in a field following a mass sterilisation.

The women had all undergone the procedure at a hospital that local officials said was not equipped to accommodate such a large number of patients.

In 2011, the government issued guidelines outlining the standard operating procedures for sterilisation services in camps.

But a 2012 report by Human Rights Watch urged the government to set up an independent grievance redress system to allow people to report coercion and poor quality services at sterilisation centres.

It also said the government should prioritise training for male government workers to provide men with information and counselling about contraceptive choices.

But despite the recommendations to the national government, problems persist on the ground.

India's family planning programme has traditionally focused on women, and experts say that male sterilisation is still not accepted socially.

Government figures from 2008 show that around one third of the 54 percent of the population that reported using any form of family planning opted for female sterilisation.

Link - http://news.yahoo.com/eight-indian-women-die-dozens-critical-mass-sterilisation-091950583.html
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Kairi
KS
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Posts: 99


« Reply #2 on: November 11, 2014, 11:41:21 AM »

SCORES OF INDIAN WOMEN DUMPED UNCONSCIOUS IN FIELD AFTER STERILISATION
Agence France-Presse Feb 07, 2013

KOLKATA, India // Scores of women were dumped unconscious in a field after a mass sterilisation in eastern India because there was no room in hospital for them to recuperate, medical officials said yesterday.

The women had all undergone surgical procedures at a hospital in the Malda district of West Bengal, about 320 kilometres north of the state capital Kolkata, which officials admitted was not equipped to accommodate such a large number of patients.

The scandal came to light after the news channel NDTV aired amateur footage of unconscious women being carried out of the hospital on Tuesday and then placed on open land.

Local health officials acknowledged that the patients' treatment was unacceptable and promised an inquiry.

"Over 100 women, mostly poor, came to the camp for the surgery. Immediately after the procedure, the doctors asked the helpers to move each of them to the adjacent field," Biswa Ranjan Satpathi, West Bengal's director of health services, said in Kolkata.

"This is inhuman and we have ordered a probe into the incident."

Medical experts also voiced shock over conditions at the hospital, where four doctors carried out a total of 106 sterilisations in one day.

Uday Roy, a health campaigner who was present at the sterilisation camp, said some of the women were shoved on rickshaws after surgery even though they were clearly in no fit state to make any kind of journey.

"A woman sterilised in the hospital fell off the rickshaw on the way to her home and she had to be hospitalised with severe injuries," said Mr Roy, who works at Debalaya Trust, a voluntary organisation providing free medical services.

Unlike China, India has no laws limiting the number of children a family can have.

However, given its billion-plus population, local governments often offer incentives such as cars and electrical goods to couples volunteering for sterilisation.

Source - http://m.thenational.ae/news/world/south-asia/scores-of-indian-women-dumped-unconscious-in-field-after-sterilisations
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Kairi
KS
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Posts: 99


« Reply #3 on: November 11, 2014, 11:45:38 AM »

HORROR IN MASS STERILIZATION CAMP:  Unconscious Indian women were dumped in a field after undergoing a painful sterilization operation  
By Carol Kuruvilla    New York Daily News    Thursday, February 7, 2013, 5:48 PM


A sterilization drive at a rural hospital in West Bengal ended in scandal after four doctors rushed to sterilize 106 Indian women within a day. The women were left outside in an adjacent field to recover.

Hospital staff at a mass sterilization camp in West Bengal dumped more than 100 women in a field to recover after their painful operations.

Four doctors at the government-run Manikchak Rural Hospital in West Bengal are under investigation after conducting as many as 106 sterilization operations on Wednesday, the Times of India reports. Medical officials say that each of these patients should have been kept under close watch for at least three hours. Instead, doctors ordered them to be placed in an open, dirty field adjacent to the hospital, exposed to infection and to the eyes of onlookers.

Local officials admit that the hospital, located 224 miles north of Kolkata, was not properly equipped to handle the large influx of patients. The hospital has 60 beds — 30 each for men and women. No more than 25 sterilizations are allowed per day, NDTV reports. Manikchak residents said that the hospital conducts sterilization drives regularly, but would put up tents for the patients in the past.

Wednesday’s sterilization camp began at 10 a.m. and lasted until 7:30 p.m. Neither of the two doctors who spearheaded the drive were gynecologists, so a gynecologist from a nearby town was asked to drive in. The patients were sent home on cycle vans because the hospital doesn’t have an ambulance of its own, India Today reports.

One woman had to be readmitted to Manikchak hospital after her cycle van collided with another vehicle on her way back home. She was referred to a district hospital with critical injuries.

Some Indian states offer incentives — including cars, gold and sweepstakes — that promote sterilization, according to Human Rights Watch.

Full article and video link here - http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/indian-women-dumped-field-sterilization-operation-article-1.1258314
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