Surrogacy: Probe ‘finds’ loopholes in paper work

VISAKHAPATNAM: The inquiry committee, comprising medical experts, formed to look into the recent ‘illegal’ commercial surrogacy charges brought against a private city hospital, submitted its final report to the district collector on Thursday. After thorough study of the report, authorities are likely to take action against the hospital management as per the norms.

It has been reliably learnt that the expert committee had found that there were many lapses concerning documentation of the surrogacy procedure followed at the hospital. “As per the technical and the scientific part, no major faults were found. But we observed several documentation lapses, such as improper memorandum of understanding  (MoU) agreement and no proper maintenance of records. There was no original case sheet of the victim and her name was entered wrongly. We incorporated all these things, including the controversy on the amount paid to the victim by the biological parents of the embryos and the management in the report,” an committee member told TNIE on condition of anonymity.

The expert committee, which is led by Dr G Arjuna, the superintendent of King George Hospital (KGH) and has Dr PV Sudhakar, Dr Rama Raju and Dr Chandrakala Devi as members, submitted copies of the report to the District Medical and Health Officer  (DMHO), the Director of Medical Education (DME) and to K Ramulu, a member of the National SC Commission, who recently visited the victim and demanded a solatium of Rs 8 lakh to the victim and a comprehensive probe into the issue.

After receiving complaints from Nagalakshmi, the victim, and several women’s organisations, and following staging of dharnas in front of the city hospital, government authorities took the issue seriously and ordered an inquiry. Nagalakshmi alleged that the Padmasri Hospital  management and doctor Sudha Padmasri had cheated her by saying that they would collect only eggs from her.