Delhi High Court Asks The Government For Report On City’s ‘Unwarranted’ C-Sections.

The Delhi High Court has asked the city government about the steps taken to curb the practice of “unwarranted” caesarean section deliveries by some private hospitals in the Capital.
A Bench of Acting Chief Justice Gita Mittal and Justice C. Hari Shankar asked the government to submit the report to the committee formed by Directorate General of Health Services.
The court was hearing a plea by advocate Vikram Srivastava, founder of NGO Independent Thought, claiming that there was complete absence in regulation of caesarean section deliveries to safeguard the reproductive health rights of women and children.
The plea stated that due to lack of any regulation, hospitals were increasingly opting for caesarean section deliveries based on “extraneous considerations”.
It said that between 2012 and 2015, about 65.54% deliveries that took place in 47 private hospitals in Delhi were done using caesarean section. Of 45,064 babies delivered, 15,529 were born normally while the rest were born via caesarean section.
Mr. Srivastava said details from an RTI application revealed that during the same period, only 20.62% of all deliveries in government hospitals were caesarean.
During the hearing, the court noted that the Central government had taken a stand that health was a State subject. Hence, the rules and regulations with regard to caesarean section deliveries needed to be formulated by respective State governments.
Mr. Srivastava submitted that the high rate of deliveries by caesarean in private hospitals was solely due to the unregulated space in this area and was a serious violation of the right to health of women and children.
He said unnecessary operations by caesarean section are dangerous and harmful to the neonatal health of both mother and child and also result in higher cost of health care.