Karnataka saw 1.35 lakh abortions in last five years

Karnataka saw 1.35 lakh abortions over the past five years, according to the health department. To get a better sense of the abortion rate in Karnataka, the e-Kalyani website was launched at KC General Hospital, Malleswaram, on Wednesday to empanel private facilities to offer medical termination of pregnancies.

Dr Chandrika B R, Deputy Director, Family Welfare Programme, was present along with Health Minister Dr K Sudhakar.

On the portal, one can access digitised forms to be submitted to the district family planning officer if a health facility is informing the state of abortion.

Dr Chandrika told DH: "If the pregnancy is shorter than nine weeks old, oral pills can be given for abortion but if the foetus is older than nine weeks, it is surgically removed. Across the state, 1,35,000 abortions were done. But we feel this is an underestimate as it is not commensurate with the number of health facilities that have the capacity to do abortions."

She continued: "If we digitise the process, we can monitor. Any facility that does not submit the forms on the e-Kalyani software can be de-empanelled. We can also keep track if adequate spacing of three years is being maintained between pregnancies. A woman should also wait for at least six months between an abortion and the next conception."

There are 593 government facilities in the state where doctors are trained to do an abortion. In the private sector, there are 972 facilities where abortion is done. A circular will be soon sent to hospitals across the state to submit forms on e-Kalyani software.

KC General Hospital also intends to build a 100-bedded mother-and-child hospital. It will be built in the style of the government-run maternity hospital Vani Vilas. As already announced in the budget, four super-speciality hospitals with at least 500 beds will be built under a PPP model in four directions of Bengaluru.

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