The Control Yuan yesterday censured the Department of Health (DOH) for failing to address the causes of the unusually high percentage of births by caesarean section in the country.
Control Yuan members Cheng Jen-hung (程仁宏) and Gau Fehng-shian (高鳳仙), in charge of the investigation into the case, said the DOH had been negligent, as it was its responsibility to look into the matter.
“The DOH is to blame, as it considers the increasing numbers of caesarean deliveries is associated with mothers having babies later in life and it did not try to improve the situation,” Gau said.
The Control Yuan report found that the nation’s caesarean-section rate is 34 percent, lower only than Italy, where the caesarean delivery rate is 39.72 percent. It is considerably higher than Australia, Canada, Germany, Britain, the US and Denmark, Chen said.
The DOH’s failure to come up with measures to reduce the number of caesareans had caused harm to the national health insurance system and pregnant women, Cheng said.
“An obstetrics and gynecology department receives a higher payment for delivering a baby by caesarean section than for a natural birth, but the risk of the caesarean procedure is five times higher than that of delivering a baby naturally,” Cheng said. “Moreover, if a woman is giving birth for the second time after she has had a caesarean section, she is often advised to have a section again.”
The Control Yuan members also demanded that the DOH investigate obstetrics and gynecology departments where the number of caesarean section births have been exceptionally high.
Examples cited in the Control Yuan report were that the rate of caesarean births at an obstetrics and gynecology department in Hsinchu City was as high as 80.7 percent, while the rate at an obstetrics and gynecology department in Keelung City was 67.3 percent, while a department in Taipei had a 59.6 percent rate.
The DOH should ensure that parents do not pick an auspicious date and time for their babies to be born and insist on a caesarean and it should also educate about misconceptions about natural births, such as resulting vagina relaxation, urinary incontinence and difficulty in regaining your figure, Gau said.
Gynecologists get paid more for a caesarean-section birth than for a natural delivery, but they should not encourage patients to have this type of surgery or grant requests for caesarean-sections unless it is absolutely necessary, Chen said.
RSS