R'than pays damages for failed vasectomies

The Rajasthan medical and health department had to fork out Rs 4 crore as compensation for failure in family planning operations — vasectomy and tubectomy — in the state last year.

According to rules, a compensation of Rs 30,000 has to be paid to victims in case of failure of an operation, and Rs 2 lakh in cases of death resulting from the surgery.
According to data available with the department, 1,330 operations reportedly failed and eight deaths were reported due to complications last year.

Official data also indicated that the family welfare department conducted 30 vasectomy and 1,500 tubectomy surgeries in the state last year.

Senior officials who do not want to be named say department officials wake up at the end of the year and in their anxiety to achieve targets, announce lucrative schemes to attract couples to adopt family planning methods.

Several districts have announced lottery schemes offering Tata Nano car and television sets as incentives for adopting family planing operations last year. These operations were conducted in small camps and the condition of several of these camps were bad.

“In a day, more than 200 operations were conducted and medical protocol was not followed. This resulted in failed operations and sometimes, complications such as infections, even leading to deaths,” said an official.