A Gujarat hospital has come up with an innovative answer to India’s skewed girl-to-boy ratio – it will waive all fees and medical bills for any mother who delivers a daughter.
The Sindhu hospital in Ahmedabad said the “special offer” has been introduced to help “celebrate the arrival of a daughter”.
“For years, we observed that majority of women who got admitted for delivery hoped and prayed for a boy. Sweets would be distributed on a birth of a male child but a girl’s arrival would be met with stoic acceptance,” managing director Mahadev Lohana told the Times of India.
“The country and every community need to celebrate the birth of a girl,” he said.
The scheme is part of a broader drive to alter perceptions and protect unborn and newborn girls in India, where the arrival of a daughter is often met with disappointment, and millions are aborted or murdered at birth.
Pre-natal gender testing has been officially illegal in India since 1994, and is punishable by up to five years in prison, in a bid to prevent prevalent gender-based abortion.
Nonetheless in 2011, The Lancet medical journal found that up to 12 million girls had been aborted in India in the past three decades.
Two-thirds of women in rural Indian deliver their children at home, making it difficult for authorities to track what becomes of unwanted baby girls.
Narendra Modi, India’s prime minister, launched a “Beti Bachao Abhiyan” (Save the Girl Child) campaign last year to help eradicate female foeticide, asking fathers to post “selfie” photographs with their daughters online on International Women’s Day to boost awareness.
Gujarat has 890 girls for every 1,000 boys, considerably below the national average of 919. In the state of Haryana the child sex ratio falls to 834, India’s lowest, according to the 2011 census.
Under the Sindhu hospital’s scheme, mothers who give birth to girls will save around 7,000 rupees (£80) for a natural birth and up to 20,000 rupees for a caesarian section, as well foregoing a mandatory 1,000 rupees registration fee, the Times of India reported.
Courtesy: The Telegraph
