Vigil on sex determination tests increased

Nashik: The district health department has decided to increase decoy to crack down on sonography centres to keep a check on sex determination tests.
The decision was taken after the recent visit of district collector Radhakrishnan B and district civil surgeon Suresh Jagdale to New Delhi for the national-level workshop on 'Beti Bachao Beti Padhao' campaign.
Jagdale said, "Our aim is to check the malpractice of sex determination throughout the district. In Nashik, the sex ratio is 922 females per 1,000 males, when it should have been 970 females. It means that a large number of sex determinations and subsequent abortions are taking place."
Jagdale said there were approximately 70,000 births in the district last year. "Considering the sex ratio of 970 females per 1,000 males, there should have been 33,950 child births. However, since the sex ratio in the district is 922 females per 1,000 males, there were 32,270 female births, which means that were at least 1,680 abortions," he said.
"On the lines of Asha workers in the district, police volunteers would be deployed to keep a check on pregnant women, women having one or two daughters and take the matter to the authorities concerned," Jagdale added.
Health officials said the tehsildars and taluka medical superintendents would be responsible to ensure that there were no sex determination tests in their jurisdictions. There are about 600 sonography centres in the district, of which 450 are in the city limits. Many taluka superintendents said women who want to get the sex of their foetus determined usually went out of their respective taluka places and got the test done and also abortions.
Health officials said the doctors or centres that conduct sex determination tests face severe action.
In May, the Maharashtra Medical Council (MMC) suspended the accreditation of two doctors from Pimpalgaon Baswant, 30km from here. The doctor couple, Arun and Shobhana Patil, at Sriram Hospital in Pimpalgaon was involved in violation of rules governing pre-natal sex determination in 2012 at the health institute, which also has a sonography machine.
In the meantime, the doctor couple had approached the high court. In May, charges were framed against the doctors, following which the MMC suspended their accreditation.
Senior medical officials said people should take note of the fact that the Patil couple of cannot practice until the verdict of the court is in their favour. If the charges against are true, their accreditation will be terminated.