CON DOCS
Officials Fail To Act Despite Reports Carried In ‘TOI’
Of Illegal Hysterectomies On Lambada Women in Medak District
Roli Srivastava | TNN
Hyderabad: An extreme case of criminal activity like this should have made the government machinery jump up in immediate action.
But two weeks after ‘TOI’ first reported cases of large scale hysterectomies in Medak district, the government machinery has barely woken up to the issue of young Lambada tribal women losing their uteruses, health and savings to ‘doctors’ who con them into undertaking these procedures even for routine complaints.
Both health and women and child welfare departments claim to have “taken note” of the reports that appeared in this newspaper and say they have asked for a detailed inquiry into hysterectomy cases in Medak district. Both the departments have “asked” the Medak district collector to inquire into the matter. Nothing beyond that has happened.
P V Ramesh, secretary, health and medical department said that it was a serious public health issue and that he would notify both the health minister and the chief minister about it. “Criminal action will be taken against any unlicenced practitioner found to be operating in person or in proxy,” he thundered in the usual manner of a bureaucrat that signifies little action. He said the Medak district collector would submit the report in a week’s time. In similar fashion Y V Anuradha, director, women and child welfare, declared that district officials from her department and local health officials would be working on this matter. An unconcerned state health minister, S Chandrasekhar Rao remained unavailable for comment despite repeated attempts and so did industry minister and gynaecologist J Geeta Reddy, who represents a constituency bordering the place where these illegal cases had surfaced.
Senior officials pleaded that there was no mechanism to monitor the situation and was one reason the practice has gone unabated over the years.
In what signifies low priority being attached to the whole matter, the district administration has just begun training a team that would go around the rural parts of the district asking women not to visit registered medical practitioners (RMPs). The local RMPs, who people here consider as doctors, have allegedly performed uterus removal procedures on hundreds of women over the last few years even for routine complaints.
This team, comprising anganwadi workers, home guards and health officials, will be functional from July 15 and would go around villages of five mandals spreading the word to say no to local doctors and approach the team’s members, who belong to the local community, to take them to a doctor as against them visiting one on their own. Analysts however wondered how effective these teams would be.
“We will train a few young boys and girls in the area who can speak the native language and will be trained on this issue of hysterectomy and even female foeticide,” said Medak district collector B Venkatesham, adding that the team would visit each house to check if any woman had undergone a hysterectomy or was considering the same.
The district collector met health and women and child welfare department officials earlier this week at a meeting called by Dr K Rajyalakshmi, nominated member of the legislative council, Medak.
“We also spoke to the mobile hospital of Narsapur improving the lab services there so that proper tests could be carried out,” said Dr Rajyalakshmi, adding that women in the area still complained of abdominal pain and proper tests were needed to determine the cause.
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Times of India 30 June 2007
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