Visakhapatnam: Health officials have intensified inspections across fertility centres in the north Andhra region following the exposure of fraudulent activities at the Universal Srushti Fertility and Research Centre.
As per allegations, the centre duped a Rajasthan couple of Rs 30.26 lakh in a surrogacy scam.
Police said the crackdown exposed serious regulatory gaps in the region's fertility sector. Of approximately 60-70 fertility centres operating in north Andhra, Visakhapatnam alone houses 50 IVF centres and 9 surrogacy centres. Only two hold official permissions for surrogacy procedures.
DMHO Jagadeeshwar Rao told Deccan Chronicle that the Universal Srushti Fertility and Research Centre in Visakhapatnam did not have valid permission for surrogacy procedures. The centres permission, which was valid from 2018 to 2023, expired in 2023. The management has not applied for renewal.
"We will visit the centre again to establish whether it is conducting any procedures without permission," he said.
The regulatory process for surrogacy approval involves multiple layers of scrutiny. Applications must first receive district collectors approval before being forwarded to the DMHO. In recent years, only two surrogacy cases have received official approval across the region.
The DMHO of Srikakulam confirmed that all the three fertility centres in the district are operating with valid permissions. "We have not received any complaints about fraudulent activities," the official stated.
Similarly, the Vizianagaram DMHO, while not revealing specific data, also said no fraudulent activities were detected during their inspections.
The surrogacy scam centers around Dr Pachipali Namratha, the 64-year-old director of Universal Srushti Fertility Centre. She was arrested in Vijayawada. This marks her second major arrest. In a 2020 child trafficking case, she and her accomplices were found to have illegally sold six newborns to childless couples.
The current case emerged when couple Govind Singh and Sonia from Rajasthan filed a complaint. They discovered through DNA testing that the baby they received wasn't biologically theirs.
Despite being medically capable of natural conception, the couple was misled into surrogacy procedures after they got involved with the centre first through online in August last year.
Police investigations showed Dr Namratha was engaged in such activities in multiple cities since 2018 through her branches in Hyderabad, Vijayawada, and Bhubaneswar.
Namratha was arrested in Vijayawada in the current surrogacy fraud case. Following this, the Visakhapatnam police apprehended Chitikireddi Kalyani Atchayyamma, manager at the Visakhapatnam branch, within the limits of Maharanipeta police station following a search operation conducted with a warrant obtained from the additional chief judicial magistrate, Secunderabad.
City police commissioner Shankhabrata Bagchi said the accused manager confessed to facilitating illegal embryo procedures under the direction of Dr Namratha.
Eight people have been arrested in connection with the case, including Dr Namratha, her son Jayant Krishna and others. All accused have been remanded to custody for 14 days.
The arrests caused a sensation in the state as also Telangana. AP health minister Satya Kumar Yadav has ordered an inspection of all fertility centres in the state to check whether they were having valid licences and working as per norms.
Meanwhile, NTR district medical and health officer Dr Suhasini arrived at the Universal Health Care centre in the city and found it was closed. This centre was given permission in the name of Universal Fertility Centre owned by Dr Namratha.
With no staff member available at the time of inspection, the DMHO promised to inspect the facility and initiate necessary action as per norms.
