Sex-test medics to face the heat - Punjab orders action
Our Correspondent
Chandigarh: The Punjab government has decided to tighten the noose around doctors as well as registered practitioners of homeopathy and ayurveda who guarantee the birth of a son.
Medical education and research secretary Jagjit Puri today ordered action against medical practitioners advertising various “cures”.
Hoardings promising magic cures, especially for sexual disorders, and assuring the birth of a male child violated the guidelines of the Medical Council of India, the Indian Medical Association and other affiliating bodies, he said.
“It is not only unethical and illegal but it is also turning the pious medical profession into a money-minting pursuit. Anybody found guilty would be served with a showcause notice for cancellation of his licence,” Puri warned.
Hi-tech gender identification kits have entered not only towns but also rural areas in the state with one of the lowest sex ratios.
Punjab has a dismal ratio of less than 874 females to 1,000 males. The national average is 933.
The kits, imported from the US and Canada, are passed on to willing parents eager to find out the sex of the unborn child. Costing Rs 15,000 to Rs 20,000, they claim to tell the baby’s sex within the first seven weeks of pregnancy.
Each kit comes with a built-in-equipment for collecting the finger-pricked blood sample, which is sent to a laboratory in the US and the results are conveyed within 48 hours by email or on the phone.
While sex determination through ultrasound is banned, these kits are not covered by the law.
The local municipalities and transport departments are being approached to remove all hoardings and posters promising cures.
“The advertisements are mostly misleading as their main purpose is only sex determination. We are in the process of identifying the doctors,” a health officer said.
April 16, 2008, Telegraph India |
