The risks of backyard abortion

MARANYANE NGWANAAMOTHO
Staff Writer | Monday October 24, 2011 00:00

There was blood even on the clothes in the washing basket. A groan came from the living room. A trail of blood led in that direction. With her heart about to jump out of her chest cavity, she ran towards the living room. Her sister, Neo lay in a heap next to the telephone. Questions raced in her mind. Had Neo been attacked while in the toilet? Was she trying to call for help? What happened? Her pulse was weak. Colour had gone from her face. Her feet and hands were cold, but the rest of her body was warm. Her breathing was belaboured. She dialled 911.

The doctor finally called her. It had been an anxious two hours of waiting. But the look on the doctor's face said it all. 'We tried all we could, but she lost too much blood,' said the doctor gently. She nodded. A lump that had suddenly formed in her throat prevented her from talking.

The three nurses and the other doctor were taking off their bloody gloves and scrubbing off at the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) washbasin. A white form lay covered under a white sheet. No one needed to tell her it was her sister.After all, she was also in the health profession and knew the meaning of it all. Neo's pasty and slack skin told the story. She was dead.

'Someone pushed this stick inside her vagina. They must have thrust it up because it broke the blood vessels on both sides of the cervix,' he paused then, 'She was four months pregnant.' An orderly wheeled the body away.The recollection of the bag hit her like a thunderbolt. She quickly signed the release papers for the morgue and rushed home. The bag was still where she had fleetingly seen it. The kitchen door was open. There was also a handbag... left by someone in a hurry. The identity card inside belonged to someone she would never imagine her sister getting acquainted with. The woman was a well-known backyard abortionist.

In Maun, exactly one thousand kilometers from the Princess Marina mortuary where Neo was being wheeled, Tshepo struggled to get out of bed. She felt very weak and was short of breath. An intense perpetual pulsating pain was spreading across her abdomen. She stood next to the bed and balanced on the headboard. The blood gushed from under her like an angry Thamalakane River, overlooking her room. No one had told her it would be this painful. Not even the Malawian 'herbalist' had warned her. Instead he had told her that she would have a normal flow for some days, and that the fetus would disintegrate and come out with the flow. But this was not a flow. She was bleeding! She trudged towards the bathroom. The room spun and she felt herself going down.

She woke up in hospital. Her bewildered husband stood next to her. She was in too much pain to answer the obvious questions on his face. She would tell him later, she told herself as she drifted back to sleep.

The doctor would keep her for two weeks to ensure she took the full course of antibiotics. Failure to do so would result in post-abortion sepsis, which would force them to remove her womb. Worse it could kill her.The doctor had no choice. He had to tell the husband. She had taken some concoction, which led to her bleeding, and the loss of the fetus.

'What fetus?' the shocked husband asked as he held his head. He left the briefing room, his mind racing.'I must tell you. She told me yesterday that she was pregnant. It was not your baby and she had already taken some concoction from some herbalist at Thito,' his sister told him on the way back home. His world came crushing down.

They had two children together. More and more questions would follow. Perhaps this was the beginning of the end of their marriage, he thought as he sighed audibly.Tshepo was lucky. She still has a womb. Not so for Maemo in Bobonong. She did not bleed after she took some brackish concoction from the filthy dreadlocked healer from Malawi. Instead a huge black smelly clot simply dropped off as she was taking her shower. The pains followed.

They were initially like period pains as their intensity increased. She dared not go to the hospital as she was afraid the police would be involved. Her cousin realised she was in trouble on the morning of day four. She loaded her on the family donkey cart and took her to hospital. She was immediately referred to Selebi-Phikwe where she was placed in the ICU. The doctors said her blood had become septic and that she had less than 60% chance of survival. She lived though. However she lost her womb.

It would be another month before she could be released.Juanita is an Accountant with a local bank in Gaborone.She has one child and would like to keep it that way. When she realised that she was pregnant a while back, she simply filled in her leave form. She then drove the 400 kilometres to Johannesburg's where she fetched a male friend from Daveyton before proceeding to Benoni. A group of well-groomed, middle class young women and their partners chatted easily in the waiting area. 'Amber, Tsholo, Juanita...,' the male nurse called out the names and beckoned them to follow him.

She came out of the doctor's room an hour later. The pain had been bearable, understandably because the suction also pulled tender flesh inside the uterus. Beyond that though she would only use ordinary sanitary pads.And she was free to go back to work the same day.

Recently Health Minister, Reverend Dr John Seakgosing told a Kgotla meeting that backyard abortions are growing every year. In the last year 7,216 backyard abortions were reported. This translates to 18 backyard abortions every day.

Unfortunately many complications, and sometimes death follow each backyard abortion. Unlike the rich and middle class, many women cannot afford the doctor's fee and the travel to South Africa where abortion is allowed.Is there a solution to this ever-growing problem?