Soon, private hospitals providing maternal care in the State will have to renew their empanelment once in five years for Comprehensive Abortion Care (CAC) services. This follows amendments made to the Medical Termination of Pregnancy (MTP) Act, 1971, in 2021, aimed at providing a legal framework for making safe abortion service available in India.
The empanelment procedure will be on the lines of registration renewal under the Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques (PCPNDT) Act, 1994.
“We have submitted a proposal to the Government in this regard and are trying to get an approval for once in five years empanelment. As of now we have 972 facilities (including public and private) empanelled in the State. Of these, 733 are from Bengaluru Urban and BBMP. All of them have permanent empanelment now,” Chandrika B.R., State Deputy Director (Family Welfare) told The Hindu on Wednesday.
She said it was difficult to monitor the services of these empanelled hospitals as many would have relocated or would have stopped the services. “Besides, there are many hospitals providing maternal care that are yet to get empanelled. This could be due to lack of awareness. Now all such hospitals will be asked to get empanelled through the Karnataka Private Medical Establishments (KPME) Act,” she said.
To simplify the process of empanelment and to ensure all maternal care health facilities get empanelled, Health and Medical Education Minister K. Sudhakar launched the e-Kalyani software and website on Wednesday.
Better monitoring
“Through this portal, while hospitals can track the progress of their empanelment, health officials across the State can monitor the services being offered by these hospitals. At the same time, the public can also get an overview of the Comprehensive Abortion Services being provided in the State. District-level committees have been set up to empanel private hospitals,” she said.
According to the amended Act, the gestation limit for abortions has been raised from the earlier ceiling of 20 weeks to 24 weeks, but only for special categories of pregnant women such as rape or incest survivors. But this termination would need the approval of two registered doctors.
All pregnancies up to 20 weeks require one doctor’s approval. The earlier law, the MTP Act 1971, required one doctor’s approval for pregnancies upto 12 weeks and two doctors’ for pregnancies between 12 and 20 weeks. The approval of two doctors is now needed only for the 20-24 timeline reserved for abortion seekers of special categories.
There is also no upper gestation limit for abortion in case of foetal disability if so decided by a medical board of specialist doctors, which state governments and union territories’ administrations have to set up.
“As per the amendment, all medical colleges and tertiary hospitals should have a medical board. We have 19 medical boards (in 19 government medical colleges) now and will set up more once the Centre frames guidelines,” Dr. Chandrika added.
Over 1.34 lakh abortions in last five years in State
As many as 1,34,241 medical termination of pregnancies have been done in the State in the last five years. Of these, 83,052 have been done in Government hospitals alone, according to data from the Health Department.
Chandrika B.R., State Deputy Director (Family Welfare) said these abortions are apart from 1,01,971 spontaneous abortions. In Government hospitals while 66,176 abortions were done at a gestation period of upto 12 weeks, 16,326 were done beyond 12 weeks.
