Hospital denies surrogacy allegation

Visakhapatnam: Managing Director of Padmasri IVF Centre Dr Sudha Padmasri refuted the allegation of the Dalit woman, who stated that the hospital management cheated her.

She said that there is no agreement between the woman and hospital. In fact, the agreement was signed between the biological parents and the woman.

The biological parents and the woman came to an agreement and came to their hospital for IVF. After examining the agreement between the two parties, as a doctor she attended her duties, Sudha Padmasri pointed out.

Addressing a press conference here on Thursday, Dr Padmasri pointed out that according to rules and regulations, hospitals are not supposed to sign agreement with the surrogacy mother and biological parents. But both the parties can come to a hospital only after signing the agreement.

Hence, both the parties came to the hospital and submitted their agreement and after taking the consent of the Dalit woman, they admitted her to their hospital, Padmasri said. As per the MCMR rules and regulations, the IVF Centre was set up and no sedative drugs have been given to the woman during the process of IVF. In fact, without the woman’s consent, it is not possible to inject zygotes.

She said that the Dalit woman was scared when suddenly women’s activists laid a siege to the hospital on Wednesday. “I am born and brought up in Vizag and done my MBBS and PG in Andhra Medical College. If someone read about the MCMR rules and regulations and the IVF Centre's role in the agreement, it would be easy to understand about the hospitals role in the agreements.

If the woman is not interested to continue as a surrogacy mother, no doctor would continue the process. Every document and hospital permissions have been shown to the police and DMHO also,” Sudha Padmasri said.