The civic health department in Mumbai has revealed a significant gender disparity in sterilisation procedures, with the number of men undergoing sterilisation being 30 times lower than women. Data from April 2022 to March 2023 shows that only 480 men opted for vasectomy, while 14,028 women chose tubectomy during the same period.
Health officials express are concerned that the family planning programme has not gained the expected momentum, despite various measures taken to promote it, including counselling and awareness campaigns. The low participation of men in sterilisation procedures is attributed to persistent myths and misconceptions surrounding the surgery.
Dr Daksha Shah, Executive Health officer, said BMC family planning department keep conducting awareness campaigns and providing information about female and male sterilization. Moreover women are counseled about this sterilisation in every maternity hospital along with the surgery procedure.
“We will be focusing on clearing the myths and misconceptions about sterilisation through proper counselling to men and women. Contraceptive measures such as Antara injection and Chhaya pills are also discussed along with permanent sterilization for women,” she said.
Alarming numbers of sterilisation
National Family Health Survey (NFHS)-5 data shows 37.9% of women use sterilisation or tubal ligations to check unwanted pregnancies, which is way higher that than the safer and non-surgical options like pills (5.1 per cent), injectables (0.6%), condoms (9.5%), IUDs (2.1%) or male sterilisations or vasectomies(0.3%). The data also highlights that almost 75% of all female sterilisations take place in public hospitals or government run camps, and roughly one-third of them are done post-partum.
Observations from another report published by the National Health Mission stated: “Women continue to bear an uneven burden of the terminal methods of family planning and sterilisation.” As per Health Management Information Systems. (HMIS) in 2017-18 (till October) of the total 14,73,418 sterilisation procedures only 6.8% were male sterilisation while 93.1% were female sterilisation.
Senior gynaecologist Dr Rajashree Katke said there is a need to encourage men toward sterilisation. Only then will they come forward. Moreover, women who suffer from health ailments like diabetes, hypertension, cardiac problems, and other health issues must not take risks. Men should be encouraged to take the lead.
'Men have numerous myths related to sterilisation'
“It is a great move taken by the civic body which will benefit men in the future. Men have numerous myths related to sterilisation which can be tackled only through awareness. Also, emphasis must be given to creating more awareness among women,” she said.
“In a patriarchal society like ours, it is not easy to challenge this masculinity. That is why, to a large extent, family planning is still considered the responsibility of the woman even now. The gap between the number of women and men opting for sterilization is a reminder of this misbalance. The only solution is to tackle the patriarchal mindset,” she said.
Awareness campaigns on sterilisation
Senior medical health officer said they are trying to organise as many awareness campaigns as possible for these sterilisation processes so that more people come forward. The campaign aims to intensify awareness and educate men about the benefits and bust myths about vasectomy. Sterilisation is one of the better options among all the family planning measures. “We will be counselling men. We have directed maternity and antenatal homes to clear any myths or doubts,” he said.
