The Chennai police on Monday arrested a quack, identified as K Sivasankaran, who had allegedly revealed the gender of the foetuses of around 500 women. His scan centre in Velachery, named Chennai Scan Centre, was sealed by the authorities and the ultrasound machine used by him was also seized.
As per reports, the state health department had been receiving complaints about the clinic recently from different doctors and patient groups in the locality. Hence, the officials from the Directorate of Medical Services sent a five-month pregnant woman as a bait to catch the quack in his act. On Monday, after conducting a scan, Sivasankaran told her that she was carrying a baby boy and charged her Rs 1,200. Revealing the sex of the foetus is prohibited by the Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques Act (PCPNDT), 1994.
Based on this information, officials from the department led by Dr A Viswanathan, Joint Director, conducted further inquiries and found out that neither his scan machine nor the scan centre was registered with the government under the Tamil Nadu Clinical Establishment Act. Sivasankaran has been operating the centre since 2014. DSP Thomas Prabakaran also told the Times of India that Sivasankaran was scanning at least 10 women every day in his clinic. The department has seized around 500 test reports from the centre and has videographed the entire operation, which will be submitted in the court as evidence of wrongdoing.
Sivasankaran was arrested on Monday by the police at J7 station, Chennai, for violation of the PCPNDT Act, for practising medicine without a medical degree, cheating and impersonation.
In 2019, several illegal scan centres and abortion centres were shut down and sealed in Tiruvannamalai district by the authorities. However, this is the first time in several years that an illegal scan centre is being sealed in Chennai district.
Source: The News Minute