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Doctors flown in as sterilization toll hits 12
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A TEAM of doctors rushed to central India yesterday after at least 12 women died and dozens of others fell ill following sterilization surgeries in a free, nationwide program aimed at limiting births in the world’s second-most populous nation.
The case highlights the risks women face in reproductive health in a country struggling with high population growth and widespread poverty.
A total of 83 women, all villagers under the age of 32, had the operations last Saturday as part of the federal government’s free sterilization campaign and were sent home that evening. But dozens later became ill and were rushed in ambulances to private hospitals in Bilaspur, a city in Chhattisgarh state.
By yesterday morning, at least 12 women had died, officials said.
The apparent cause of death was either blood poisoning or hemorrhagic shock, which occurs when a person has lost too much blood, state deputy health director Amar Singh said.
Dozens of women are still hospitalized, including about a dozen in critical condition.
The Chhattisgarh state government sent a plane to New Delhi overnight to pick up a team of seven doctors to help treat the patients.
“Whatever treatment is being provided to the victims is good,” Dr Anjan Trikha of the Delhi-based All India Institute of Medical Science said yesterday at one of the hospitals in Bilaspur. He declined to say anything more until the results of autopsies are released.
India’s government —long concerned about pervasive poverty among its rapidly growing 1.3 billion population — performs millions of free sterilizations of both women and men who want to avoid the risk and cost of having a baby. The vast majority of patients are poor women who are usually paid a one-time incentive fee of about US$10-US$20, or about a week’s pay for a poor person in India. About 180 million people in the country still live on less than US$1.25 a day.
India has one of the world’s highest rates of sterilization among women, with about 37 percent undergoing such operations. About 4.6 million women were sterilized in 2011 and 2012, according to figures.
Activists blame the incentive payments, as well as sterilization quotas set by the government, for leading health authorities to pressure patients into surgery rather than advising them on other forms of contraception.
“These women have become victims because of the target-based approach to population control,” said Brinda Karat of the All India Democratic Women’s Association, who has demanded that the state’s health minister resign.
India has one of the world’s worst records on maternal health care, with 200 women dying for every 100,000 giving birth. Its infant mortality rate — 63 of every 1,000 newborns die — also makes it one of the riskiest places for new babies.
The women who underwent surgery on Saturday were each paid about US$10, and all 83 surgeries were performed within six hours, the state’s chief medical officer, Dr SK Mandal, said.
“That is not usual,” he said, but declined to comment further until the autopsies determine exactly what went wrong.
The state suspended four doctors, including the surgeon who oversaw the operations and the district’s chief medical officer.
“It appears the incident occurred due to negligence” by doctors, Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Raman Singh said.
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