14 foetal scan centres shut in Thiruvananthapuram

Thiruvananthapuram: In a special drive against illegal foetal gender determination tests, around 14 scanning centres across the state were closed down after health officials found discrepancies in their functioning.

Violations of law were detected in 57 scanning centres, mostly in Thiruvananthapuram, amidst growing concern over the declining sex ratio in the state.

Around 80 teams of health department officials under the respective district medical officers had raided around 503 scanning centres, 18 genetic clinics and two genetic counselling centres in  the state. Most centres were closed down in Thiruvananthapuram (8) where 15 scanning centres had  violated the rule, followed by Malappuram( 5)  and Ernakulam (1).

A central committee had recently pointed out violation of the Pre-conception and Pre-natal Diagnostic Techniques (Prohibition of sex selection) Act 1994 in various states.

Kerala, which boasts of the highest sex ratio in the country, has a total of 1,048 females for every 1,000 males, as per the 2011 survey. However, there are  only 958 females for 1,048 males for the age group up to  six  years and this has led to a series of drives over the years.

“Many private scanning centres have evidently done sex determination of foetus and they have been temporarily closed down. Some of them were attached to private hospitals,” said a doctor who was part of the raid.

“Doctors were found doing check-ups on patients without registration while some centres were operating without registration. Some had not kept the requisite documents,” said health department director N. Sreedhar in an official statement.

The raids in Thiruvananthapuram were  held in areas around Pattoor, Thycaud and Medical College.

The raids were  led by DMO D.S. Jayashyankar , deputy DMO  Neena Rano and district programme manager Unnikrishnan.