No lessons learnt: Sterilisation of 40 women done under torchlight in Jharkhand

A BJP MLA on Saturday raised an incident in the Jharkhand Assembly of about 40 women undergoing sterilisation allegedly under torch light in Chatra district.

Raising the issue, MLA Jaiprakash Singh Bhokta said despite the Chief Secretary ordering proper arrangements for sterilisation camp, the family planning surgery had been done in torch light recently, a PTI report said.

Bhokta demanded to know on whose direction it had been carried out.

According to this report in the NDTV, one Savitri Devi who brought her daughter-in-law for the surgery said, “There are no arrangements at all. No medicines, we are being treated like animals.”

The NDTV report confirms the BJP MLA’s allegations and added that the operations were carried out under torch light as there was no electricity in the hospital on Wednesday night.

Speaking to the media, a senior doctor  Dr C P Singh said that the torches were only used for dressing. An inquiry has been ordered into the shoddy arrangements by the hospital, the doctor further added.

In November last year, among 83 women, 13 women died due to botched sterilisation drive in Chhattisgarh. According to this article by IndiaSpend published on Firstpost, the annual report of the Ministry of Health & Family Welfare, 3.9 million sterilisations were performed in 2013-14. Data from the Lok Sabha reports 707 deaths due to failed sterilisation procedures between 2009 and 2012.

The article added that male sterilisation has fallen sharply from 3.5% during the first health survey in 1992-93 to only 1% during the last health survey in 2005-06.

According to the latest Annual Health Survey that covered nine states – Assam, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Jharkhand, Rajasthan, Odisha, Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh – while female sterilisation ranged between 35-86%, male sterilization ranged between 0.6-2%.