Chandigarh, October 30
The Haryana Health Department has sealed 35 ultrasound machines for allegedly conducting sex determination tests. The action came after a special task force constituted to enforce the Pre-Natal Diagnostic Test(PNDT) Act raided several ultrasound centres in Narwana, Jind, Kurukshetra, Hisar and Ambala.
Dr B.S. Dahiya, Director-General of Health Services, said here today that 17 cases of violation of the Act had already gone to the court for trial while three more cases would be filed soon.
Dr Dahiya said a decoy patient was sent to a nursing home at Uklana Mandi in Hisar district for sonography. A BAMS, lady doctor, in charge of the nursing home was allegedly caught conducting sonography in the absence of a radiologist. She allegedly locked the machine in a drug store. However, the task force recovered the machine and the doctor admitted that the nursing home did not have an approved radiologist on its rolls.
Dr Dahiya said the doctor had not prepared any document like Form F and ultrasound report to escape legal complications under the PNDT Act. He said the registration certificate of the
centre would be cancelled by the District Appropriate Authority.
Similary, the task force raided an ultrasound centre in Rohtak, where violations of the Act were detected. Record of the centre was confiscated.
Dr Dahiya said a doctor couple of Ambala was booked under Sections 304, 121, IPC, and the PNDT Act after a patient died at their nursing home while conducting abortion. The postmortem report prepared by a board of government doctors confirmed 16 weeks to 20 weeks of pregnancy and abortion before death.
Dr Dahiya said the registration certificate of the nursing home owned by the doctor couple had earlier been suspended by the Civic Surgeon-cum-District Appropriate Authority under the PNDT Act following the detection of violations of the Act by it. Despite the suspension of the registration, the doctor couple conducted sonography on a patient. The couple also did not prepare the necessary documents under the Act. The patient was aborted in gross violation of the Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act, 1971, as the nursing home was not registered under the Act.
He said the registration of the nursing home had been cancelled with immediate effect following the recommendations of the District Advisory Committee under the PNDT Act. The committee had also recommended the sealing of the ultrasound machines as well as the filing of a case against the doctor couple in a court of law.
