Satna (Madhya Pradesh).
On November 11 earlier this week, 21 women came to the Rampur Baghelan Community Health Centre at Baghelan, Satna district, Madhya Pradesh, 460 kilometres (km) away from the state capital Bhopal, to be sterilised as part of a family planning programme. They were all administered anaesthesia, but only 10 women were sterilised, while the rest lay or sat around listless at the hospital awaiting their turn that never came as the surgeon, MM Pandey who had come to Baghelan from the Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel District Hospital, Satna, specially to conduct the sterilisations, left the premises after performing 10 surgeries. The remaining anaesthetised women were left unconscious with no medical staff or doctor to attend to them, and the family members who had accompanied these women to the centre were simply asked to take them back and five of them were asked to return the following day for the procedure.
Clearly, there was a lack of communication and coordination between the doctor and the health workers which led to this negligence and callousness.
According to Raghavendra Gurjar, the block medical officer of Rampur Baghelan, although only 15 women had been called for the sterilisation camps due to COVID-19, a few other women also turned up. “Doctor Pandey conducted ten surgeries. I requested him to attend to the other women and assured him that we wouldn’t let the same happen next time,” recounted Gurjar who then got busy with other work and was unaware that the doctor had left the health care centre, after performing only 10 surgeries, and not all 21. “The matter has been reported to the chief medical and health officer,” Gurjar informed Gaon Connection.
When contacted by Gaon Connection, the doctor MM Pandey said, “Before the camp was organised, we had meetings where it was decided each doctor would carry out ten sterilisations. The block medical officer of Rampur Baghelan, Raghavendra Gurjar was also present when this was decided. If there were more than ten women, the rest should have been sent away without administering anaesthesia,” he pointed out.
Each sterilisation procedure takes anything between 15-30 minutes. And it depends on each doctor how many procedures he or she can perform in a day. “But in view of the COVID-19 situation, we had decided to do no more than ten,” said Pandey firmly.
However, the district medical and health officer, AK Awadhiya, said that a show cause notice has been issued to Pandey, who had specifically gone to the Rampur Baghelan Community Health Centre camp to perform sterilisation.
These women had come to the sterilisation camp that had been organised under the family planning programme at Rampur Baghelan community health centre located about 25 km away from the district headquarters at Satna.
“On November 11, I brought two women, Deepa Kewat and Meena Kol at 12 noon to the centre,” said Praveen Shukla, an accredited social health activist (ASHA) working at Bahelia Bhat village. “They were administered injections [anaesthesia]. But doctor Pandey who was there on duty refused to perform more than ten surgeries. Women were just left unconscious, propped up against the walls or lying on the corridor floors,” she added.
“Two women from the Karahi village were brought in for sterilisation. They were administered injections but doctor saheb refused to perform the operation. The block medical officer pleaded with him to do the operation, but he still did not listen,” an auxiliary nurse midwife at the centre told Gaon Connection on condition of anonymity.
Pandey categorically denied that he had left 11 women unconscious and unattended. “My brief was that I do ten procedures, and that is what I did,” he reiterated. “I knew nothing about the other women. I do not know why they were administered the anaesthesia either,” he said.
The next day, on November 12, five of the 11 women who were not sterilised were recalled to the Community Health Centre at Baghelan for the sterilisation, said Gujjar. “The others will be called back soon too. Doctor KL Namdeo from the district hospital is performing the procedures,” Gurjar informed Gaon Connection.
Meanwhile, Pooja Kol from Bandha village, who was taken back home by her family remained unconscious for an unusually long time.“We were told she would regain consciousness in a couple of hours, but she did not. She was unable to even feed her year-old child,” Kusuma Kol, a relative complained to Gaon Connection.
There have been several instances of such callous negligence towards women during sterilisation camps. Whether it was in 2017, where 38 sterilisations were done at the civil hospital at Maihar tehsil in Satna district, or in 2019, at the Gyaraspur Primary Health Centre, Vidisha district, close to Bhopal, where 41 women were sterilised, they were made to lie on the floor post-op, unmindful of hygiene and threat of infections.
In December 2019, at the Birsinghpur Community Health Centre, 40 km from Satna district headquarters, 35 women were sterilised. The procedures began only after the doctor arrived at five in the evening. The power went off and the doctor sutured the patients in the light of a mobile torch.
The National Family Health Survey-4 report states that in Madhya Pradesh, in 2015-16, only 0.5 per cent of men underwent sterilisation while 42.2 of women were sterilised. The report clearly suggests that the number of women opting for sterilisation is a lot more than men. In 2019-20, against the 3,397 men who underwent vasectomy, there were 3,34,000 women who had been sterilised. In 2015-16, the state had registered 9,957 vasectomies and in the following three years the numbers were 7,270, 3,719 and 2,925, respectively. Health workers in Madhya Pradesh were given an incentive by the government of Rs 2,000 for every female sterilisation and Rs 3,000 per male sterilisation. Although the health workers are able to persuade women for sterilisation, men’s participation continues to be very low.
The previous Kamal Nath government in Madhya Pradesh had issued an order in February 2020 that the salaries of male multipurpose health workers would be cut or they would be forced to retire if they failed to register at least one vasectomy under the family welfare programme. It had caused a stir among the health workers, and the government had to recall its decision.
