A doctor from Pune has single-handedly taken on a mission to save the girl child through his unique initiative. Inspiring the masses to stop female foeticide across the country, Dr Ganesh Rakh waives off his fees if the baby delivered at his hospital is a girl.
According to a PTI report, Dr Rakh runs a maternity-cum-multi speciality hospital in Hadapsar area in Pune and his efforts are in line with his 'Beti Bachao' initiative. The noble initiative started 11 years ago and till date, he has delivered more than 2,400 girls without charging a single penny from the family.
Not only that, all the girls born at his hospital receive a rousing welcome from the staff. The hospital organises a grand celebration every time a mother delivers a girl child at his hospital by cutting cakes and showering petals on the parents. The doctor also arranges a ride home for the mothers and their infant daughters in a decked-up auto-rickshaw upon their discharge from the hospital.
"We also celebrate the birth of a girl child by cutting cakes, distributing sweets and we also felicitate the parents of girls,"Dr Rakh told news agency ANI. "In 11 years we have almost delivered 2,430 baby girls in our hospital and we celebrate the birth of each girl in our hospital."
The doctor also talked about how watching families' reluctance to accept the girl child led him to start the initiative.
"Before 2012, in the initial years of the hospital, we came across different experiences here where in some cases if a girl was born, the family members would shy away from coming to see her. That picture struck me and gave me a fillip to do something to save the girl child and create awareness about gender equality," he told PTI.
Dr Rakh informed as per a government survey, there were more than six crore female foeticide cases in the last 10 years. This is a kind of "genocide", he claimed. "As per our survey, of late there has been a remarkable drop in cases of female infanticide and this is a positive takeaway," Dr Rakh added.
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