Mainstream WeeklyIt is well-established medically that while hysterectomies are needed and justified in many cases, these should not be taken up indiscriminately, and where it is possible to treat using medication and less invasive procedures, these should be preferred. This is important considering that hysterectomies can have several harmful side effects, some of which can be serious. In any case all patients should be well-informed of the options available, the real need as well as side effects
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Unfortunately, a lot of evidence has become available in parts of India that, particularly (but not only) in the context of poorer and less educated women, hysterectomies have often been performed indiscriminately without giving adequate care to safer options available. One indication of this is that many women of younger age have been subjected to hysterectomies, while the average age of this in several developed countries tends to be significantly higher. Several women who had undergone hysterectomies have given statements indicating that they did not have proper information about what was being done to them, why it was being done, and whether options were available. This led to a long-drawn case in the Supreme Court of India, resulting finally in court directives aimed at minimising the abuse of this medical procedure for narrow commercial objectives. However, it is far from clear that these directives have been followed, as misuse of hysterectomies is still being reported, sometimes in alarming ways, as indicated by reports concerning sugarcane workers of Beed, Maharashtra. While this is being written here in the context of India, similar trends in several other countries taken together may be causing avoidable problems and side-effects, including serious ones, to a very large number of women, including younger ones.
In India a number of serious cases that indicated widespread prevalence of unnecessary hysterectomies surfaced around the year 2010. In Rajasthan