Kerala - Thiruvananthapuram

Scan centres, doctors cautioned

Thiruvananthapuram: The Health Department has called for self-regulation by doctors to ensure that the provisions of the Pre-conception and Pre-natal Diagnostic Techniques (Prohibition of Sex Selection) Act are strictly implemented . It said the sophisticated technologies used for determining genetic abnormalities should not be misused.

A workshop organised here by the district health administration, which is authorised to implement the Act in the district, said that doctors and those running sonography or diagnostic clinics had to ensure that they followed all formalities required by the Act so that they were not penalised for technicalities.

It said that though some 350 doctors across the country had been booked under the provisions of the Act, only three had been found to have committed serious offences, while the others were pulled up for not fulfilling the legal provisions required under the Act.

Sheela Shenoy, Head of Gynaecology and Obstetrics Department, Sree Avittom Tirunal Hospital, who made a presentation on the Act, said that India had one of the lowest sex ratios in the world at 933 (933 females per 1,000 males), according to the 2001 census. In Kerala, the overall sex ratio had been favourable at 1058. However, in the 0-6 age group, the State had an adverse sex ratio of 963 (2001 census), though it was a slight improvement on the 1991 census figure of 958.

The statistics of child sex ratio in the 0-6 age group in the country has shown a continuous decline for the last four decades. From 976 in 1961 census, the sex ratio in this group has fallen to 927 in the 2001 census.

While a certain percentage of under-enumeration of girls and childhood mortality of girls should be expected, female infanticide and sex-selective abortions do have a certain role in this declining child sex ratio, it is believed, Dr. Shenoy said.

Apart from ultrasonography tests, these days, a host of medical technology, including pre-genetic tests such as amniocentesis or chorionic villus sampling and pre-conception techniques, are available for detecting genetic abnormalities in foetuses. However, there is always the danger of these technologies being misused. The Pre-natal Diagnostic Techniques (Regulation and Prevention of Misuse) Act was thus amended in 2003 to be called the Pre-conception and Pre-natal Diagnostic Techniques (Prohibition of Sex Selection) Act.

While the law prevents anyone from asking, or doctors from revealing, the sex of the foetus openly, there are reports of doctors or clinical staff using sign language to convey indirectly whether the foetus is male or female, Dr. Shenoy said.

At the workshop, doctors and representatives of diagnostic clinics vehemently denied that sex-selective abortions were taking place in Kerala. The level of awareness of the PNDT Act was high both among the public and the medical community and even otherwise, in the State, where most couples had begun to settle for just one child, no one ever bothered to find the sex of the foetus, it was argued.

The Health Department, however, pointed out that whether sex-selection was happening or not, the PNDT Act had many stringent provisions which had to be followed strictly. A booklet issued by the Union Ministry of Health was released by Director of Health Services K. Shailaja on the occasion.

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