NEW DELHI, Sept 29: The apex consumer forum has asked the Centre and MCI to take steps to protect women from “rampant unscrupulous hysterectomies” being carried out by private nursing homes to take advantage of a central scheme which provides them reimbursement for treating the poor.
The National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission said the nursing homes take advantage of the Rashtriya Swastha Bima Yojana (RSBY) and cheat women by carrying out hysterectomies where they are not required. It asked the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare and Medical Council of India to initiate stringent action against such doctors.
NCDRC passed the order while directing Secunderabad-based Yashoda Group of Hospitals and its gynaecologist, Dr Padmini Valluri, to pay within three months Rs 10 lakh to a woman as compensation for “negligent treatment” given to her.
The NCDRC said Dr Padmini not only “lacked consent” of the patient, but also “removed the ovaries and fallopian tubes in circumstances that were neither pathologically necessary nor reasonably incidental to surgery contemplated,” resulting in sterilisation of the woman.
“RSBY has become a craze among private nursing homes… several thousand nursing homes in India take advantage of the scheme and cheat women by carrying out hysterectomies where they are not required. Ministry of Health and Family Welfare and Medical Council of India (MCI) should initiate stringent action against such doctors.
“Data of hysterectomy surgeries should be made mandatory for each private and government hospital in the country. There is need to protect the innocent women in our country and stop such rampant unscrupulous hysterectomies… We are of the view that the hospital and doctor are negligent…
“Complainant’s wife (patient), who anticipates lifelong unforeseen complications of hysterectomy and removal of her ovaries, deserves just and proper compensation. Also, she lost the chance of second baby,” a bench presided by Justice J M Malik said.
The bench also observed in its order that hysterectomy is rarely a life-saving surgery and is almost always performed on women who are not given information about the consequences and when women do ask, “they are lied to by gynaecologists”.
“Such doctors are shirking their Hippocratic oath for money and removing the very essence of womanhood,” it said.
The bench also noted that according to medical experts, such a surgical procedure may not be necessary at all as women can opt for oral remedies, hormonal injections, etc, to get rid of problems like heavy bleeding and fibroids and the surgery should be resorted to only if all other treatments fail.
It also observed that “unnecessary hysterectomy results in inability to have future conceptions, pregnancies and children. This can have disastrous medical, social and psychological consequences on couples who desire to have children. Removal of both ovaries, in young and middle-aged women (below 40 years), leads to loss of female sex hormones, resulting in premature surgical menopause”.
The bench was hearing a plea of the patient’s husband, who had alleged that his wife, admitted for abdominal pains and menstrual disturbances in the hospital, was made to undergo hysterectomy without her informed consent, resulting in various medical complications as well as loss of the chance to ever conceive again. (PTI)
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