Women left in field after sterilisations
2013-02-07 16:51
Kolkata - Scores of women were dumped unconscious in a
field after a mass sterilisation in eastern India because there was no room in
hospital for them to recuperate, medical officials said on Thursday.
The women had all undergone surgical procedures at a
hospital in the Malda district of West Bengal, around 360km north of Kolkata,
which officials admitted was not equipped to accommodate such a large number of
patients.
The scandal came to light after news channel NDTV aired
amateur footage of unconscious women being carried out of the hospital on Tuesday
by men and then placed on open land.
Local health officials acknowledged that the patients'
treatment was unacceptable and promised an inquiry.
"Over 100 women, mostly poor, came to the camp for
the surgery. Immediately after the procedure, the doctors asked the helpers to
move each of them to the adjacent field," Biswa Ranjan Satpathi, West
Bengal's director of health services, told AFP in Kolkata.
"This is inhuman and we have ordered a probe into
the incident," he added.
Medical experts also voiced shock over conditions at the
hospital, where four doctors carried out a total of 106 sterilisations in one
day.
Uday Roy, a health campaigner who was present at the
sterilisation camp, said some of the women were shoved on rickshaws after
surgery even though they were clearly in no fit state to make any kind of
journey.
"A woman sterilised in the hospital fell off the
rickshaw on the way to her home and she had to be hospitalised with severe
injuries," said Roy who works at Debalaya Trust, a voluntary organisation
providing free medical services.
Unlike China, India has no laws limiting the number of
children a family can have.
However, given its billion-plus population, local
governments often offer incentives such as cars and electrical goods to couples
volunteering for sterilisation.
- SAPA
