PHC medical officer tipped-off authorities

Dhruvi Modi

The Primary Health Centre (PHC) in Kalahadi helped the authorities in Tiruvannamalai catch a woman involved in performing illegal abortions. In Tamil Nadu, every pregnant woman has to register on a software called the Pregnancy and Infant Cohort Monitoring and Evaluation (PICME). After realizing that one registered woman did not show up for her antenatal check-up for eight weeks, the Village Health Nurse (VHN), under the orders of a PHC officer, visited the woman – a common procedure in the case of the absence of a pregnant woman for a check-up.

According to a report, Collector K.S. Kandasamy said, “The VHN confirmed that the woman had undergone an abortion, but was unable to get any details from her about the procedure. The medical officer reported the incident to us, and we decided to use the details of her antenatal registration to find out what had happened.”

Initial investigation

 The police located her based on her information on the software, and were able to trace her phone calls. Upon doing so, they contacted the last person she called, her relative, Kutty, who later intimated the police about the situation. According to him, this was the woman’s third pregnancy, and after an ultrasound, she learnt that she was having a girl. Since her first two children are also girls, she decided to abort this foetus. Kutty then informed the woman of a quack, Kavitha, who aborted a child for his wife six months ago.

After receiving this information, the police officials sealed the scan centre in Tirukoilur for violating the Pre-Conception and Prenatal Diagnostic Techniques (PCRNDT) Act. They then raided the clinic, which was set up behind a grocery store on Girivalam Path, and arrested the couple, Kavitha, 41, and her husband Prabhu, 45, under various sections of the Indian Penal Code, for conducting the illegal procedures.  The case was solved by the police in a span of seven days. Officials have said that this was definitely not the first time such a situation had taken place in Tiruvannamalai.