Four women have died after undergoing double puncture laparoscopy sterilisation at a government-run medical camp in Telangana’s Ranga Reddy district, India, an official said Wednesday.
India has been running sterilisation programmes for almost seven decades to control its burgeoning population, but the family planning scheme has often run into controversies such as botched surgeries or coercion including when millions were forcefully operated on in the 1970s.
A medical officer in the southern state of Telangana said 34 women were operated on at a state-run sterilisation camp last Thursday.
Four of them died on 25 August, due to suspected sepsis.
After undergoing the procedure, the four women had reportedly complained of symptoms related to acute gastroenteritis and were admitted to private hospitals for treatment.
The deceased were identified as Mylaram Sushma (26) of Lingampalli village of Manchala block, N. Mamatha (25) of Narsaipalli village of Madgul block, Mounika (26) of Kolukulapalli thanda and Avutharam Lavanya (27) of Sitarampet village.
Two deaths were confirmed by the government on Monday (29 August), and the other two on Tuesday (30 August).
The relatives of the women have protested against alleged medical negligence, following which the state government has ordered a comprehensive inquiry into the tragedy.
Authorities said all the victims were in their 20s and an investigation had been ordered.
“We are waiting for a complete post-mortem report. If it was gastroenteritis and sepsis, we will have to look into the water consumed after the procedure. We will also look into whether it could’ve been a fault with the equipment, if there was an issue with the surgeon’s technique, which injured other organs, etc,” director of public health G. Srinivasa Rao told the News Minute.
Rao told Hindustan Times that as a common practice, such sterilisation camps are conducted across Telangana every month; however, very rarely such incidents of botched up surgeries take place.
He added that a committee of experts headed by him will submit a report to the government in seven days.
The state government has promised 500,000 rupees ($6,300) and a house to the families of the victims following protests by the family alleging negligence by the doctors.
Sterilisation camps are common in India, particularly in vast rural belts, but so also are botched surgeries across the nation of 1.4 billion which is projected to overtake China as the most populous country next year.
More than four million women were sterilised in 2014-15, according to the latest government data, compared to 100,000 men in the same time period.
Nearly 530 people died after undergoing sterilisation at state-run medical centres between 2012 and 2016, according to government figures.
Critics say the cause was medical negligence by doctors using dirty equipment or expired drugs.
India forcefully sterilised more than six million people, mostly unmarried poor men, in 1975 under a controversial state-run programme to control its population.
AFP