Five things to know about sterilisation camps in India, deaths in Chattisgarh

The News Minute|November 12, 2014| 11.52 am IST

11 women succumbed to a botched mass sterilization campaign organised at Bilaspur district in Chattisgarh after a doctor reportedly used infected tools to perform 80 surgeries over a period of five hours. This incident has led to protests in the region with Prime Minister Narendra Modi urging Chief Minister Raman Singh to thoroughly probe the matter.

Five things that you must know about the sterilisation drive that went horribly wrong in India:

•  80 women had been operated upon on Saturday at the government run Nemi Chand hospital and were discharged the same day after giving medicines. However, about 10 women complained of severe abdominal pain, fever and vomiting and were referred to differed hospitals. By Sunday evening, eight had died possibly due to septic infection and shock.

•  Ironically, the sterilisation drive was organised by the Health Minister of the state, Amar Agarwal in his own district. The doctor Dr. RK Gupta has been suspended and the incident is under investigation, said the Chief Minister.

•  Such camps are organised as a part of the national health insurance scheme under which hospitals can claim compensation for expensive producers that people cannot afford. According to a BBC article, the scheme launched in 2007, allows hospitals to claim 30,000 per family for such surgeries performed. Besides, the women are paid 1,400 and 200 for the workers by the state.

• As is popular from the 1970s, India has been advocating mass sterilisation drives across the nation to control its booming population. Hence, government sponsors these camps regularly mostly in villages and often women are expected to under this procedure rather than men. According a Hindustan Times report 1,434 deaths have occurred due to sterilisation procedures between 2003 and 2012. The year 2009 was the worst with 247 deaths in the same year. Uttar Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh have reported the highest sterilisation deaths. However, the official figures may only reflect a certain percentage of the unofficial numbers.

• Often in these camps, cash incentives are given to attain numerical targets, says a Human Rights Watch report (2012) carried in the Bloomberg. And if these targets aren’t met with, workers are threatened with salary cuts, suspension or dismissal forcing them to resort to such measures.

With massive abuse of such a scheme, its time the government looked at amending the provisions under the scheme to prevent such incidents in the future.