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Rs 20,000 for female foeticide: Haryana health minister suspends Panchkula govt doctor
The doctor was caught on video offering to carry out an abortion in exchange for ₹20,000.
Taking note of the surfacing of a video showing Dr Poonam Bhargava, a gynaecologist at Panchkula civil hospital, seeking Rs 20,000 for aborting a female foetus, Haryana health minister Anil Vij on Sunday ordered the doctor’s suspension.
“I have taken action against the doctor and suspended her,” Vij told reporters on being asked about the matter while he was meeting residents during a Janta Darbar at his house in Ambala Cantonment. Vij was apprised of the case in the morning after multiple media reports highlighted it, said an official from Vij’s Ambala office.
The video was submitted to the hospital’s chief medical officer (CMO) by a Chandigarh resident, who met Dr Bhargava and told her that his wife was pregnant with their third girl child and they wanted to abort it. In response, the doctor offered to carry out the abortion at her house in exchange for Rs 20,000, and asked the man not to reveal the matter to anyone.
While estimating the foetus to be four months old, in the video, the doctor is seen sharing that she will have to execute a normal delivery to remove the foetus.
The man had told the CMO that he was introduced to Dr Bhargava by another woman employee at the hospital with whom he had first discussed his wife’s pregnancy.
