Revealed! Mumbai hospitals' darkest secret on family planning is out!

Are pregnant women being blackmailed into undergoing sterilisation even as they are in the throes of childbirth That is what the Mumbaibased Centre for Studies in Ethics and Rights has alleged in an article published in an international journal last month The article does not feature patient statistics to support the allegation but is a qualitative study that includes interviews with doctors and staffers from two government hospitals in the cityThe study published in the Journal of Reproductive Health Matters was conducted at a tertiarycare teaching hospital attached to a government medical college and a secondarycare hospital located in an extended suburban district of the Mumbai urban agglomerationBetween 2010 and 2013 the researchers interviewed 16 presently employed obstetricians residents and consultants five formerly employed obstetricians seven nurses and two hospital administrators connected to the obstetrics services across these two hospitalsChilling confessionThe report includes a chilling admission from one of the doctors a senior resident at the tertiarycare teaching hospital What I have been told by my seniors and what I tell my juniors is that if the lady is in her active phase of labour it is the best time to talk to her about TL tubal ligation They are very receptive at that time They understand what pain it is how it is good to not have it once again sicDoctors allegedly threatened not to perform required procedures on the patient or refused discharge or banned the patient from future treatment at the hospital unless they agreed to have their tubes tied Typically consent for the tubal ligation was negotiated when the women were at their most vulnerable mdash during labourNeha Madhiwalla the principal researcher of the study and coordinator of Centre for Studies in Ethics and Rights CSER Anusandhan Trust said there is an unspoken code in these hospitals to push women to undergo tubal ligation after two deliveries and IUD intrauterine device insertion after the first However there is no procedure to counsel the women about their options as per the rules of the central governments family planning departmentIn fact the patients are often threatened with a ban from the hospital or refused discharge if they refuse the surgical procedure But no one asks the husbands to undergo vasectomy said MadhiwallaIn fact as per data procured from the BMCs health department the ratio of men and women undergoing birth control surgeries at civicrun hospitals is 123 one man for every 23 womenPatient recallsmidday reached out Kurla resident DeepaKadam who said she had been subjected to this ordeal twice at the same hospital In 2013 when she went into labour with her second child doctors at Nair hospital pushed her to opt for tubal ligationFrom the second delivery onwards they keep pestering pregnant women to undergo tubal ligation When you are reeling under labour pain trying to push a baby out your brain doesnt work You just want to get it over with and many end up agreeing to the surgery she said At the time it took all of her resolve to say no to the doctors but when she returned to the hospital for an abortion in 2017 they refused to help her It was only after she agreed to sterilisation that they terminated the pregnancyIn another case a 32yearold from Sion was admitted at a civicrun hospital to give birth to her second child Even as she was reeling from labour pain the nurses coaxed her into having her tubes tiedThe other sideIdzes Angmo Kundan additional municipal commissioner health denied the allegations and said Such activity doesnt happen in our hospitals We may counsel pregnant women but never force anyone into sterilisationDr Sanjeev Kamble director Directorate of Health Services said In government hospitals no medical staffer forces anyone into it Doctors and social workers from the hospitals talk to them and sensitise them about family planning and with their consent the surgery is performedLack of doctorsThe report also claims that the lack of senior doctors is putting patients lives in danger In some cases junior doctors are forced to shift patients to tertiary hospitals or nurses allegedly conduct vaginal deliveriesLast year around 4000 children died across hospitals in the city Dr Avinash Supe former dean of KEM hospital said Almost 40 of the patients are referred from peripheral hospitals And most of them come at the last stage of treatment which increases mortality in these hospitalsThe authors and methodologyThe article was written by Neha Madhiwalla coordinator at CSER Anusandhan Trust Rakhi Ghoshal senior programme officer at CSER Padmaja Mavani assoc prof department of obstetrics and gynaecology Seth GS Medical College and KEM Hospital and Nobhojit Roy head WHO collaboration centre at BARC hospital The study was also based on observations from the clinics waiting areas staff rooms nursing stations and wardsCatch up on all the latest Mumbai news crime news current 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