Srinagar, Aug 27: A survey by the state’s Health Department on prevalence of hysterectomy in women - surgical removal of the Uterus - in Kashmir has brought to fore disturbing facts with the procedure being commercialized at huge human cost.
More than 22581 such operational procedures have been recorded in all the 10 districts of the valley during past five years. Of the total number of hysterectomies, 15713 procedures were performed in private nursing homes.
“Following lot of complaints, we ordered for the survey,” said Director Health Services Kashmir, Dr Saleem-ur-Rehman. “We found that the scenario is not good.”
The survey has recorded 4196 hysterectomy cases in south Kashmir’s Kulgam district alone. But only 650 cases were performed in the government hospitals and a majority of 3546 women had undergone the surgical procedure in private health institutes in the district. Similarly in Pulwama district of 3643 women subjected to the medical formula, the number of cases counted from private institutes is 2751. In Islamabad 2441 women were operated upon for uterus removal in private nursing homes of the total 2835 cases recorded.
The situation is no different in other districts of the Valley including those in central and north Kashmir.
The health department has surveyed 1168 cases of hysterectomy in north Kashmir’s Kupwara district out of which around 90 percent cases (1009) are those from private institutes. Similar phenomenon is prevalent in other districts, too.
A senior official associated with the survey said it was “shocking” to see that the procedures were also carried out on the women belonging to the age group of 28, 30, 35 and 37.
“It alarmed us,” the official said. “In many cases patients were told that they have bulky uterus and need to be operated upon. The term does not exist. The hysterectomy shall always be last option.” Removal of the uterus renders the patient unable to bear children and has surgical risks as well as long-term side effects.
The official said that the procedures have to be medically carried out by the gynecologists. However, in many cases it was found that surgeons would carry out the procedure.
He said the number of the cases reported was “very large”. “We don’t know how many of them have gone unreported,” the official said.
A senior gynecologist at Valley’s maternity hospital Lal Ded, said: “We often receive cases of patients who have undergone hysterectomy and have developed complicacies.”
“It has been observed that patients suffering from simple complicacies have also undergone hysterectomy,” the doctor said.
A source at the Lal Ded said the hospital having doctor strength of around 120 including faculty members and residents and junior doctors perform around 40 to 50 of such surgical procedures.
But the procedures carried out in the private nursing homes is much more, said the official who was associated with the survey.
“In one case it was found that around 40 such surgeries were performed by a private nursing home alone in a month,” said the official. He said it was found there were only two surgeons working in the institute.
Renowned psychiatrist Dr Arshid Hussain said: “We are increasingly seeing women with post-hysterectomy depression and unfortunately many of them belong to young age group.”
He suggested that women who are required to undergo such procedure should also go for proper psychiatric screening. “They should be educated about the merits and demerits of this procedure,” he said.

Lastupdate on : Mon, 27 Aug 2012 21:30:00 Makkah time
Lastupdate on : Mon, 27 Aug 2012 18:30:00 GMT
Lastupdate on : Tue, 28 Aug 2012 00:00:00 IST