Hyderabad: In the wake of a fake surrogacy racket bust in the city, the health dept on Monday formed around 25 to 30 special teams of doctors. Starting Tuesday, these teams will visit fertility centres, both registered and unregistered, if any, across Hyderabad over the next fortnight to verify their registration.A senior official from the health dept said that, along with the registered centres, the teams will also check if any unregistered centres are operating in the city. “The teams will verify the registration documents, equipment validity, their HR status, pharmacy operations, and if there are any unregistered ultrasound machines violating the Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques (PCPNDT) Act. Apart from these, the teams will also visit autism, wellness, and other centres. If any of these are found unregistered or is found to be flouting the rules, they will be seized immediately and a case will be registered,” officials said.According to official estimates, there are about 158 registered fertility centres in Hyderabad. This includes 27 assisted reproductive technology (ART) centres, 27 ART-level 1 centres, 72 ART-level 2 centres, and 32 surrogacy centres. “While there might be unregistered quack clinics, physiotherapy centres, and small labs, it is very rare that fertility centres will be unregistered. There might be some unregistered fertility centres running in the city, but we will get the exact picture only after a fortnight,” the official added.In the Srushti fertility centre case, officials found that the clinic was also violating the PCPNDT Act, as an ultrasound scanning machine was found on the premises, raising suspicions of sex determination. “After the licence of the centre was suspended in 2021, the accused told the court that the hospital was closed, but they ran it covertly. We suspect that she was running it at night, just like many quacks in the old city, which is why it escaped the eyes of our officials, who would go for inspections during the daytime,” officials said.Moreover, the complainants in the present case approached her in Hyderabad, but she told them that the delivery took place in Visakhapatnam, which shows that she did not want to operate from a single place as it would have exposed her malicious intentions, said the official, adding that they come across around four to five cases of child trafficking annually involving fertility centres, quacks, and others.
