PressTV... An Indian state has shut down mass sterilization operations at health camps after a physician was found using a bicycle pump to inflate patients' abdomens.
Dr. Mahesh Chandra Rout said that he had regularly used a bicycle pump to carry out sterilization operations in the eastern Indian state of Orissa, the state-run BBC reported on Wednesday.
"Cycle pumps are routinely used in many other parts of the state in the absence of costly medical equipment. There is no reason to make a big fuss about it as it has been proved fairly safe, and an affordable alternative," said the doctor, who used a pump on 56 women last Friday.
Indian state officials said that using pumps may prove to be dangerous and carbon dioxide should be used instead.
Orissa's senior health official Arati Ahuja said that from now on sterilization surgeries will only be carried out in fully equipped hospitals with the suitable facilities.
In a separate incident last month, the sterilization surgery called laparoscopic sterilization, left 15 women dead and another 14 seriously ill in Chhattisgarh state.
The sterilization procedure is one of the most popular methods of family planning in India, with many state governments organizing mass camps to attract rural women.
The procedure is voluntary, though some women said they were forced to attend the camps.
Last year, media footage showed scores of women being dumped unconscious in a field following a mass sterilization program in eastern India.
SRK/AS/MHB