Foeticide scam rattles govt, suspect doc still untraced

Tiruvannamalai: Even as prime suspect Dr Selvambal remains untraced, the state government on Saturday got into action mode to face what could well be the biggest female foeticide scam in recent times in Tamil Nadu. Health secretary Dr J. Radhakrishnan arrived here for a damage-control exercise, reviewing the situation with the district collector K.S.Kandasamy and addressing the media to allay criticism that the government has done precious little over the years to control the shameful scourge of female foeticide.

Promising stringent measures against scan centres undertaking sex-determination tests and doctors indulging in illegal abortions, Dr Radhakrishan told reporters that the government would bring in an amendment in the next Assembly session to make the anti-quackery Act more stringent. “The draft has been finalised and would be presented in the next session”, said the health secretary.

Investigators are still busy trying to fathom the magnitude of the pre-natal murders-the numbers, the period, the doctors, clinics and scan centres-while some doctors from the local chapter of the Indian Medical Association held a press conference and claimed that the scan centres, if anything, might be blamed for poor maintenance of patient records and nothing more sinister.

“A couple of scan centres have been sealed without justification just because some minor defects in patient records were noticed during the inspection by the Central team. It is not fair to penalise these centres for such clerical errors while continuing to wink at the quacks functioning with impunity across Tiruvannamalai and elsewhere in the state”, said a senior government doctor here. He requested anonymity citing service regulations.

Elaborating, the doctor said the Act against quackery “is so soft and ineffective that a quack arrested can come out on bail in a couple of days and resume business as usual in no time”. The maximum punishment under this Act is one year in jail but hardly any quack has gone that far into trouble. "For instance, one woman was arrested last year but she came out with a week and got back into business. We hear she operates a mobile scan facility and has lucrative tie-ups with some abortion clinics", said another senior doctor here.

Admitting that quackery has been a major concern in handling the public healthcare issues, collector Kandasamy said as many as 49 quacks had been arrested in Tiruvannamalai last year and about 150 cases registered. “But these people manage to come out easily on bail. The law needs to be made more stringent.  Meanwhile, we are also stepping up public awareness campaign to educate the people to treat the girl child as a blessing and not a curse”, said the hard-working collector.

Take action against scan centres indulging in abortions

Several foetuses were found buried in a market place at Cuddalore three years ago. Dogs dug them out for food. A big hue and cry was raised and three scan centres functioning nearby were closed down. Investigation showed that one of them was the culprit and it was sealed for some six months, its licence cancelled. The health authorities took no more action on this scan centre.

The Medical Council of India has powers to take legal action against doctors indulging in illegal abortions, cancel their licence. We had sent complaints to the Director of Medical and Rural Health Services (DMS), who is the appropriate authority under the PCPNDT Act (Pre-natal diagnostic technique act, 2002), but no action had ever been taken.

What we are demanding is that the village health nurses, who are monitoring the pregnant women at the PHC level, should maintain records about abortions as well, to know if the abortion was natural or induced. The rogue scan centres identify the sex of the foetus during the second trimester (12-20) weeks and thereafter the abortion decision is taken and the high-risk procedure follows killing the female foetus and endangering the life of the mother.

We have been demanding for long that the second trimester abortions should be closely monitored by the health authorities. This is not being done. If this is done regularly, you can stop the scan centres from carrying on with their illegal business.

M. Jeeva, Convenor, Campaign against Sex-selective Abortion (CASA)