Use of bicycle pump in tubectomy: Center seeks report from Odisha govt

Odisha Sun Times Bureau
New Delhi, Dec 2:

The Centre has sought a report from the Odisha government over the use of bicycle pumps to inflate the abdomen of women during sterilisation surgeries in a hospital in Banarpal in Angul district.

A senior official of the Union Health ministry said that the department has sought a report from the Odisha government to ascertain the veracity of the newspaper reports that bicycle pumps were being routinely used to dilate the cervix of women during sterilisation surgeries at camps in the absence of the required equipment.

Weeks after botched sterilisation surgeries in Chhattisgarh left 13 women dead, the report of medical officials using cycle pumps to dilate the cervix of women at a tubectomy camp in Angul district of Odisha has triggered widespread outrage.

Dr Mahesh Prasad Rout, the surgeon who conducted the surgeries at the government-run Banarpal community health centre in Angul district had admitted to the use of the bicycle pump. He said that since there was no alternative equipment available at the hospital, a bicycle pump was used to pump in air into the abdomen of women to inflate it for conducting the surgery.

Medical authorities have defended the procedure as “routine” in such operations at most government health facilities in Odisha.

The state government has already taken a serious note of the matter and ordered a probe into the same.