The recent death of women in Chhattisgarh after undergoing sterilisation at a free family planning camp could have had an impact in Madurai.
Several women died due to alleged supply of outdated medicines at the camp at Bilaspur in Chhattisgarh, and its psychological impact could be one of the reasons for the poor turnout at the Madurai branch of the Family Planning Association of India (FPAI) at Ellis Nagar this week.
The FPAI, which performs tubectomy for women and vasectomy for men, is getting lesser client load ever since 11 women lost their lives in Chhattisgarh on November 11.
“On an average, we perform family planning procedure on 10 women a day. Now it has dropped to five a day and the reason should be the negative impact of Chhattisgarh tragedy,” S. Prathiban, Branch Manager, FPAI, told The Hindu on Tuesday.
A comparison of number of women who underwent family planning procedure in November last and this year so far conveys the message.
In November 2013, the FPAI had done sterilisation for 317 women. The number is only 158 till November 18 this year.
“In the remaining 10 days, we may get another 50 persons and the month’s total will be only around 200. This shows a substantial decrease,” says Mr. Prathiban.
Stating that the Chhattisgarh tragedy could have created psychological disturbance among women here, he says that the FPAI does family planning surgery only at its well-established clinic and never organises sterilisation camps outside.
He explains that sterilisation systems are foolproof in Tamil Nadu and there is nothing to create panic.
“In our counselling sessions, we explain to families that it will be better, if men go for family planning since it is easy, simple, and riskless and the failure rate is low. While men can go to work within an hour or so, it is not the case with women since they need two or three days’ rest,” he adds.
Temporary and permanent family planning methods will be explained to the couple and the choice of who undergoes the procedure is theirs. Mandatory fumigation of surgery theatres is done as per government norms. The FPAI’s Madurai branch was set up in 1977.
