The Quality of Care in Sterilization Camps: Evidence from Gujarat

Abstract

Sterilization is the most popular method of contraception in India. The 1992-93 National Family Health Survey found that of the 36.2 percent of eligible couples using any modern method, most (30.7 percent) had been sterilized and only 5.5 percent were using temporary methods (IIPS 1995). Sterilization is thus six times
more common than all the other modern methods combined. Although the Family Welfare Programme has begun to give higher priority to spacing methods than to permanent methods, sterilization is expected to re- main the most popular method for the foreseeable future. Unfortunately, the government of India has paid little attention to the quality of sterilization services, and has tended instead to emphasize achieving targeted numbers of cases. A great deal of demographic research has been conducted in India, but few studies have focused
on the quality of care in family planning, in particular the quality of sterilization services (see Shariff and Visaria 1991; Verma, Roy, and Saxena 1994).