J’khand: Tubectomy conducted under mobile phone flashlight

Hazaribag: A video showing a tubectomy being conducted on a woman under a mobile phone flashlight in a government health centre in Jharkhand’s Hazaribag district has gone viral, prompting the administration to order an investigation, an official said on Monday.

Tubectomy is a surgical procedure performed to achieve permanent contraception in women.

The administration has also decided to take action against a worker who recorded the video and uploaded it on social media, the official said.

The incident shown in the 29-second video clip occurred at the Community Health Centre (CHC) in Keredari. It was seen in the video that the lights suddenly went out during the surgery, but the procedure continued under a mobile phone flashlight.

Ashok Kumar, the Civil Surgeon of Hazaribagh, said that a 45-year-old ‘sahiya’ (a community health worker) shot the video during the tubectomy operation and shared it on social media platforms.

He said that the CHC has a generator facility to supply power in case of outages, but it took some time to change the system and during that period, the phone flashlight was used.

The patient’s operation was performed on December 13, while the video surfaced on social media platforms on December 18, Kumar said.

The district health department will take action against the ‘sahiya’, and a show-cause letter will be issued to her in this regard, the civil surgeon said.