In a first in India, the Maharashtra Medical Council (MMC) has decided to formulate rules and regulations on surrogacy and has formed a committee for the same. The step was taken after the Mumbai police commissioner wrote a complaint letter to the MMC alleging malpractice on part of city's three leading infertility experts, who are from the surrogacy sector.
MMC is a statutory body that has the power to suspend a doctor's licence if s/he is found guilty of malpractice.
Currently, the surrogacy treatment is unchecked, unsupervised and not regularised. According to sources, there are around 70-80 IVF (in-vitro fertilisation) centres in Mumbai and 200 in the state, with the numbers rising over the past few months. The cost of the treatment runs into lakhs.
The letter, which was written to MMC last month, requested the body to look into the doctors' alleged malpractices. The issue was discussed in a meeting of the ethical committee on Saturday. In the absence of any clear regulations on surrogacy, committee members felt the need to introduce the same to keep a watch on it.
MMC member Dr Shivkumar Utture said, "We discussed the letter and how the surrogacy sector is unregulated. We will investigate the allegations in the letter, but, in the meantime, we have formed a committee, which will formulate rules and regulations for surrogacy that will be applicable for Maharashtra."
Keeping a watch on surrogacy has been a long-pending demand of health activists. There have been cases wherein the surrogate mother was exploited by doctors for money. Dr.Satish Pawar, director of health services in Maharashtra, said, "There are many things in surrogacy that need to be looked into. Exploitation of the surrogate mother is the biggest problem. The state too has its own committee looking into the surrogacy rules and regulations."
The Indian Council of Medical Research, which drafted the Assisted Reproductive Technology (Regulation) Bill and Rules in 2008, says it's unfortunate that the proposed law is still pending in Parliament.
Presently, the surrogacy sector in India is said to be around Rs900 crore, which, according to industry experts, is growing at 20% every year. Each birth costs as much as Rs12 lakh, out of which the surrogate mother gets only Rs3.5-4 lakh, apart from Rs5,000 a month for her food and nutrition supplements.
Indian Medical Association secretary Dr Jayesh Lele said, "The state health department had appointed an eight-member expert committee to formulate rules and regulation on IVF treatment six months ago. After our meeting, we filed a report and submitted it to the government. For such kind of treatment, there need to be rules in place."
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