Karnataka Janarogya Chalawali (KJC), a non-governmental organisation working in the field of health in remote rural areas, has demanded that the government make public the K. Neela committee report on unwanted hysterectomy surgeries performed in various hospitals in Kalaburagi district in the recent past and implement its recommendations that included punitive and preventive measures.
Addressing a media conference here on Tuesday, Teena Xavier and Akhila Vasan, the district coordinator and State associate coordinator of the institution respectively, alleged that higher-ups in the government departments kept the public document confidential as it contained crimes committed by reputed hospitals in the district. They said the report was gathering dust at the office of Department of Health and Family Welfare for the last eight months.
“K. Neela headed six-member committee constituted by the Karnataka State Commission for Women in September 2015 investigated the issue of unwanted hysterectomy surgeries performed in Kalaburagi district. The committee visited 25 tandas (tribal hamlets inhabited by Banjara community) and 35 villages in the district and two slums in Kalaburagi city and interviewed 66 women who underwent hysterectomy. It also took information from hospitals where the surgeries were performed. It submitted a 105-page report in April 2016. The report is kept confidential even eight months after its submission,” Ms. Xavier said. The RTI filing to get the report too was not entertained. She said that her organisation somehow managed to get a copy of the report.
Ms. Vasan said that the report named two hospitalsthat illegally performed such surgeries and recommended that criminal cases be booked against them.
“But, no action has been taken against the hospitals so far. We have been approaching State Women Commission, Health Department and other government agencies. But none has responded positively. They are deliberately hiding the report to safeguard the interests of errant hospitals. We are left with no option, but to taking to the streets. We will reach out to every villages and tanda with the report and build a mass movement against the government if it does initiate action and implementation of the recommendations within one month,” she said.
Narrating her testimony, Pinky Rathod, a 24-year-old victim of unwanted hysterectomy, said that doctors in a hospital performed the surgery without her consent two years ago when she had approached the hospital complaining of abdominal pain. “Injustice done to me should not be repeated to other woman,” she said.