Worried over what it calls the decline in the numbers of its community young, the Catholic Church in Kerala is planning medical schemes for reversal of tubectomy among women and remedial support for infertile couples.

Fr Jose Kottayil, secretary to Kerala Catholic Bishops Council’s (KCBC) Commission for Family, said the church wants financially-sound families to beget more than two children. “The church will extend support to women who want to undergo reversal of tubectomy or recanalisation. For this, the church will work out cost-effective packages in the hospitals it runs.”

The KCBC, Fr Kottayil said, had announced last year that the church would encourage bigger families. It had then suggested that Catholic dioceses would explore the possibility of providing educational incentives for a fourth child.

Following a campaign by dioceses, he said many couples have come forward for recanalisation. At present, hospitals are charging Rs 40,000 for this surgical intervention. “We want to bring down the cost below Rs 10,000 in church-run hospitals,” he said.

In Kerala, Christians constitute 22 per cent of the population. Nearly 60 per cent of the Christians in the state are Catholic. In the last census, the Christian population had shown a decline of 0.32 per cent.

Some hospitals in Kerala have already undertaken recanalisation in a big way. “We are getting a good response for recanalisation. The pro-life movement of the Catholic Church has prompted a section of the women to undergo the reversal process,” said Marceles, a nun-cum-gynaecologist at Lourd’s Hospital at Kidangoor in central Kerala.

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