Doctors carved out my uterus

PHOTO | NATION CORRESPONDENT

Imagine checking into a hospital to give birth, and checking out hours later without your womb... and without you knowing about it.
It’s sad and scary, isn’t it?

This must be every pregnant woman’s biggest nightmare, but it happened in Namibia, and activists have now sued the government for forced sterilisation of women.

Under the din, screams, curses and general helter-skelter of the labour ward, health workers in Namibia’s state hospitals seized the opportunity to ask a few women to sign some papers to authorise caesarean births.

However, with the women sedated, they ventured further than caesarean operations and carved out the uteruses, the activists allege.

These women were unknowingly sealing their productivity fate. They were never going to have children again. Someone had decided their collective maternal destinies.

But just who was responsible? This is what the Namibian justice system is trying to determine as the women point accusing fingers at the government.

They only found out that their uteruses had been removed several months later, during antenatal clinical reviews. Their ‘crime’? They were HIV positive, they suspect.

The operations reportedly took place at three government hospitals, two in the capital Windhoek and another in the northern region of Oshakati.

At the moment, over 16 women are suing the government for $165,000 (approximately Sh13 million) for allegedly sterilising them without their consent. And there are many more waiting in line.

According to the news agency AFP, more than 40 women have suffered a similar experience, with their cases recorded and presented to the Health ministry in August 2008 by legal aid groups and a women’s Aids organisation.

And this seems to be just the tip of the iceberg as the number could shoot up as many still fear coming out due to stigmatisation.

Worse still, they are afraid to tell their spouses about the same, fearing rejection, according to an article in the New Era, a Namibian newspaper.

Petition documents indicate that cases in which women seeking medical care were subjected to sterilisation without informed consent at state hospitals have been documented since February 2008.

While the country’s Ministry of Health and Social Services indicates that 200,000 of the country’s total population of 2.2 million are living with the virus, Unicef reports that 20 per cent of all pregnant women in Namibia are HIV positive, and almost a third of children in the country have lost one or both parents to Aids, meaning Namibia still has high infection rates.

The spread of HIV/Aids in the country has been exacerbated by high unemployment rate, poverty and violence against women and children.

The dilemma in many peoples’ minds is what can be done so that similar situations are not replicated in other countries.

Ms Winnie Ncongwane, a programme officer at the International Community of Women Living with HIV/Aids (ICW) Swaziland office, says these women’s reproductive rights were violated, hence their demand for justice.

Among the rights they say thay were denied by the state include the right to have a safe, healthy and fulfilling sex life, and the right to determine whether — and when — to have children.

Their status aside, they should enjoy unlimited right to liberty and security, to health, to found a family, to privacy, to equality, to freedom from discrimination and to life, Ms Ncongwane adds.

In a phone interview with the Nation from Mbabane, she said that the way forward is for various governments to educate women ontheir reproductive rights and sexuality before going for any medical procedure.

She said most women still do not understand the effects of a number of reproductive health choices they make, including family planning and even abortion.
Review health policies
The ICW is now rooting for the review and update of the current reproductive health policies in Namibia, and guidance to relegate the same. They are also calling on the government to ensure that all patients receive quality, non-discriminatory medical care, regardless of their HIV status.

This, they say, can be achieved by comprehensive training of healthcare workers on the rights of a patient, including the right to informed consent.
Ms Jeanette Zanj, an official of Liverpool Voluntary Counselling and Treatment centre, could not agree more.

Speaking to the Nation from her Nairobi office, Ms Zanj said the Namibian Government should issue a circular to both public and private health facilities to curb this practice, and conduct public awareness campaigns on the issue.

Several activists in the country are calling for a public inquiry on the issue and fair compensation for the affected women, including the option of reversal of the procedure.

On their demand list is also a call for the establishment of an effective, accessible complaint mechanism for reporting violations of patients’ rights in the country, and printing of medical consent forms in local languages.

It is still not clear whether these women were targeted due to their poor living conditions. Could someone have been trying to be ‘kind’ by preventing more children from suffering due to their parent’s ill survival means, or stigmatisation had some role to play here?

On the other hand, shortage of antiretroviral therapy for prevention of mother-to-child transmission cannot be ruled out.

As the case continues, many eyes are focused on Namibia to see if a groundbreaking solution would be found for several others suffering a similar fate in silence.