Doctor doesn't charge - delivery of girl - Fusion - WeRIndia

A doctor from Pune refuses to charge money from parents after delivering a girl child. Dr Ganesh Rakh launched the ‘Mulgi Vachva Abhiyan’ in his hospital in Pune. It is his ‘Save the Girl Child’ initiative. The delivery charges are waived off when girl children are born in hospital.

He wanted to do this when he saw the falling sex ratio in India in 2011 Census. Dr. Rakh runs the 25-bed Medicare General and Maternity Hospital in the Hadapsar suburb of Pune. He saw that parents reacted differently to the birth of girls and birth of boys. Where parents celebrated the birth of a boy, they were disappointed with the birth of a girl.

Dr. Rakh launched his initiative ‘Mulgi Vachva Abhiyan’ on 3rd January, 2012. Under this, he ordered his hospital to not charge any fee for the delivery of a girl child.

A normal delivery usually costs Rs. 10,000 and a Cesarean costs around Rs. 25,000. To Dr. Rakh this is a small contribution to improve the sex ratio of the country.

Since the beginning of the initiative, the doctor has already delivered around five hundred baby girls without charging anything. The hospital even celebrates the birth of every girl child by cutting a cake and distributing sweets in the hospital.

The doctor says that female infanticide is so high because of the social norms which are not only anti-women but anti-girl child as well. He says that mothers who give birth to a girl child go through a lot of torture because of it.

Dr. Rakh’s campaign also inspired another movement. Doctors from the nearby districts all promised to stop sex determination tests and abortions. They will be giving counsel to families to make them more accepting of girl child. So far, 3,000 doctors from Maharashtra joined Dr. Rakh’s and that number is increasing.

Image Reference: TheBetterIndia