While the state has directed the municipal corporation to pass on a government notification (dated May 31) to all maternity homes asking them to display boards in their premises stating the number of babies born, and their gender, the civic body hasn't informed PMC-run nursing homes yet.
Over a month ago, the state government had passed a notification asking hospitals and maternity homes to display a board in their premises stating the number of babies born there, and their gender. The decision was taken to create awareness regarding the dismal female-male ratio, and to put a stop to prenatal sex determination.
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The Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) was asked to convey the message to all the hospitals and private, civic-run maternity homes in the city. However, as asked by the Public Health Department, the civic body hasn’t passed on the message (issued on May 31) to PMC-run maternity hospitals till date.
“The step was taken to create awareness among the masses. When the number of boys and girls born on specific month are displayed in hospital, it will get noticed by visitors and will send a strong message regarding declining sex ratio (if any),” said Dr Sudhakar Kokane, State nodal officer implementing the Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques (PC-PNDT) Act.
“We have sent the circular to all private hospitals, and from next week our team will visit all the hospitals to check if it has been implemented,” informed Dr Kishor Pakhare, (head) PC-PNDT Cell of the PMC. However, S T Pardeshi, acting chief medical officer of the PMC, said that the circular hasn’t been sent to PMC-run maternity homes. “We have got the letter, but we have not circulated the notification to all our maternity home yet,” he said.
Meanwhile, the Pune Chapter of the Indian Medical Association (IMA) claims that it hasn’t got any notification from the government as of yet. “Our chapter hasn’t got any letter regarding this issue,” informed Maya Tulpule, president of IMA, Pune.
Vaijayanti Patwardhan from the PC-PNDT Cell of IMA, Pune, said, “Though we haven’t got any letter, I came to know about the such notification recently.
We have been providing the data to the PMC on a regular basis, and now we will be even displaying it on a board. We’ll have to split the data gender-wise and display it on board. All we have to say is that the government should not increase a doctor’s work.”
885 Number of girls per 1,000 boys (aged between 0 and 6 years) in the city in 2012u00a0