India pays poor women to be sterilized, kills them sometimes

American billionaire Melinda Gates says, "Cute kid -- now get your tubes tied;
there are too many people in the Third World."

 

Reuters

"Sterilisation is the most popular form of birth control in India. Encouraged by cash incentives[$10 for the woman, less for the "health worker" who brings her to the "sterilization camp"], about 4 million people a year undergo surgery. Almost all are women.

In Chhattisgarh, one of India's poorest states, the government had a target to carry out 165,000 female sterilisations and 26,000 male sterilisations in 2013-14, according to government documents.

Some members of India's medical establishment and activists say targets make the sterilisation programme coercive.

Investigating officer S.N. Shukla said all the women who were operated on Saturday had signed written consent. That is in line with national standards that also say consent should be not obtained under coercion or while the patient is sedated.

Tubectomies are considered major surgeries, but doctors often exceed limits. Before guidelines were set there were reports of doctors performing 200 surgeries a day, said Suneeta Mittal, head of gynaecology at Fortis Memorial Research Institute near New Delhi.

Operations at the camps are conducted in minutes, with little time to maintain hygiene. Nearly 600 deaths were reported between 2009 and 2012, according to the government."

 India is soon going to surpass China as the world's most populous nation. Twelve women just died from this procedure, apparently from septic shock -- their doctor tied the tubes of 83 women that day and probably never re-sterilized his instruments. Perhaps this is not surprising for a country that has to have a public service campaign to encourage people to use toilets.