The hospitals will be shut down in two weeks after their managements discharge all the patients being treated.
Published Jul 14, 2022 | 6:34 PM ⚊ Updated Jul 26, 2022 | 12:55 PM
State Health Minister Ma Subramanian said, “The girl was a minor and she was forced to donate egg cells several times." (Subramanian_ma/Twitter)
The Tamil Nadu health department has ordered four private hospitals to shut down over their alleged involvement in the selling of the egg cells of a 16-year-old girl.
The minor was allegedly forced to donate her egg cells to various fertility centres.
State Health Minister Ma Subramanian said, “The girl was a minor and she was forced to donate egg cells several times. An oocyte donor can be an adult married woman aged between 21 and 35 years, having at least one child.”
The minister added that donors of oocyte — an immature ovum or egg cell involved in reproduction — can undergo the procedure only once in a lifetime.
According to the minister, Sudha Hospital in Erode, Sudha Hospital in Salem, Ramaprasad Hospital in Perundurai, and Vijay Hospital in Hosur were found to be violating the Assisted Reproductive Technology (Regulation) Act or ART Act, Indian Council of Medical Research guidelines, the Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques Act, and the Tamil Nadu Clinical Establishments Act.
“The hospitals will be shut down after the hospital managements discharge all the patients being treated in two weeks,” said Subramanian.
The minister added that the violators would face fines up to ₹50 lakh and imprisonment of 10 years for violating the ART Act.
“Two hospitals enlisted in the Chief Ministers’ Comprehensive Health Insurance Scheme will be removed from it for selling the minor’s egg cells,” he said.
The state government last month formed an enquiry team led by Joint Director of Medical and Rural Health Services A Viswanathan after the Erode South police arrested three people, including a minor, for illegally selling egg cells.
The inquiry team in its report stated that the minor was forced to donate egg cells eight times in the last five years.
She was forced to donate oocytes for the first time in 2017 to a private fertility hospital in Erode by her mother and boyfriend.
“They used to get ₹25,000 for every egg-cell donation. An intermediary identified as Malathi was given ₹5,000 by the hospitals as commission. The mother had fudged the minor’s birth details on her Aadhaar card to prove that she was an adult,” the enquiry team found.
