Police have detained a doctor responsible for the death of 13 women after conducting mass sterilisation surgeries in central India, amid anger in a country that has one of the world’s highest rate of sterilisation against women.
RK Gupta, who received an award earlier this year for conducting 50,000 laparoscopic sterilisation, was detained for questioning late on Wednesday in Chhattisgarh state, Pawan Deo, the police inspector general, told the AFP news agency.
A total of 83 women, all villagers under the age of 32, were operated on in a total of five hours in a health camp on Saturday. Each woman was paid $23 as part of a government-run sterilisation scheme to reduce the growth of a population that has reached 1.3 billion.
The victims, including over 50 women who remain hospitalised, had suffered vomiting and a dramatic fall in blood pressure after undergoing laparoscopic sterilisation, a process in which the fallopian tubes are blocked.
Police were planning to seize equipment used during the surgeries, Deo said, amid fears that they were infected before the operations were carried out.
“It appears the incident occurred due to negligence” by doctors, Raman Singh, Chhattisgarh chief minister, said before urging patience for the autopsy results.
He also said the victims’ families would each receive a compensation payment of about $6,600.
Al Jazeera’s Faiz Jamil, reporting from Bilaspur, said some of the relatives at the hospital reported that the women had been experiencing vomiting and fainting for days.
“They say this is a rare case of any deaths, let alone critical illness, happening. All surgical procedures were done by doctors who have experience in sterilisation.”
The apparent cause of death was either blood poisoning or haemorrhagic shock, which occurs when a person has lost too much blood, Amar Singh, Chhattisgarh’s deputy health director, said, though the preliminary results from autopsies were expected to be released later on Wednesday.
