The death of 13 women in sterilisation operation in Chhattisgarh has once again raised the question on the standards adopted by the medical fraternity to achieve their targets. In fact India is the only country where female sterilisation predominates among various birth control measures. The most shocking was report about a surgeon conducting tubectomies (sterilisation of women) on 83 women in quick succession. Most of them were in 22 to 32 age group and complained of nausea and vomiting and suffered acute stomach pain. This could be the reason why most of the women went into toxic shocks because of instruments not being sterile. While deaths due to sterilisation procedures ranged from 153 to 184 a year between 2010 and 2012, cases of post operative complications have more than doubled in the past four years. The larger truth is government’s sterilisation effort to target women by providing additional benefit of Rs 1,400 for getting the procedure done while ‘motivators’ get Rs 200 per case. Most of the women who have undergone the procedures are from economically weaker sections of the society. For them the incentive is a big attraction to take such risk. On the contrary there is hardly any effort in male sterilisation (vasectomy) which is much simpler with less chance of complications. There should be some stringent laws to deal with such wanton ‘killing’ and doctors be made accountable for the action.
