99 p.c. men fight shy of sterilisations in city

Women thrust with the entire onus of birth control owing to many misconceptions

Beneath an ostensibly gender-equal Hyderabad, lies an alarming evidence of a city that even today, gets away with thrusting on its women the entire onus of birth control. Of over 16,000 sterilisation operations conducted this year, 15,833 have been performed on women.

Despite the process being simpler and safer when performed on men, a mere 196 of them have undergone vasectomy - the sterilisation procedure for males. Even as the target laid down by the State for vasectomies in a year is only 5 per cent of all sterilisations, meeting even that figure seems a far cry for the city. This year, men constitute barely 1 per cent of those who have been sterilised.

The scenario, not peculiar to the city, is dismal throughout the State. Karimnagar district, however, is an exception with vasectomies out numbering tubectomies (sterilisation process for women). Special camps and added incentives provided by Singareni colonies in the region being the prime reason for such development.

Officials informed that 70 per cent of all sterilisations take place in government hospitals and that women receive Rs. 600 as incentive for undergoing birth control, while men get Rs.1,000. Despite the higher incentive given to promote the procedure, men are unwilling to come forward. Several gynaecologists informed that the ‘No-Scalpel Vasectomy' performed on men is absolutely safe and does not even warrant the use of a knife; causes no cut or bleeding; and requires no more than two hours of rest, before performing all routine activities.

Complicated procedure

In contrast, tubectomy, doctors said, is relatively complicated and requires a woman to take at least 5 days of rest before carrying any heavy weight. Yet, numerous men refrain from undergoing the process due to lack of awareness and several misconceptions about Vasectomy.

There are several field-level officers deputed to create the much awareness about the ease and safety of vasectomy. Officials, however, confessed that failure of field-level persons in performing their duty has been a major deterrent in ensuring greater number of vasectomies in the city.

Interestingly, while official records of the past three years reveal that no more than 2 per cent of all men in the city have undergone vasectomy; men comprised almost 10 per cent of all procedures performed in 2008. When contacted, officials stated fraudulent registration of cases, besides performing the procedure on poor unmarried men in need of money, as the reason.