KNH: The last option for victims of failed abortions

By Dann Okoth

The biting midnight cold threatens to freeze me as I keep vigil at Kenyatta National Hospital Casualty Department. I curse the gods of my ancestors for having forgotten my jacket in the office.

Earlier, I had a frustrating evening at Ward Five on the eastern wing of the main tower block as night guards and unco-operative nurses thwarted my efforts to get close to the action at the ward notorious for handling the many unsafe abortion cases that end up at the hospital.

Thankfully, though, things are beginning to happen at the casualty department. As the clock drifts to midnight — a taxi arrives at the entrance to deliver its weak and groaning passenger. Within an hour five such patients have been delivered at the hospital’s casualty.

They are all young women, maybe in their teens. The sequence of events is strikingly similar — zooming stretchers, persistent groaning and howling and an occasional drop of blood. The morbid scenario reminds me of a similar assignment at the same institution in 2002 only this time the gravity and frequency of the cases are startling. The women have neither been involved in an accident nor are they victims of domestic violence, but botched abortions.

The region’s referral hospital is grappling with mounting cases of botched abortions.

I move closer to a woman who has just brought teenager who is bleeding profusely and start a conversation. Apparently the girl had gone to a backstreet health outlet to secure an abortion, which went terribly awry. The process failed after the abortion was induced, she explains, resulting in the girl’s present condition.

"We had to rush her to Kenyatta when her condition worsened. We only got to know she attempted an abortion when she started bleeding profusely from he private parts," she says.

Wrong hands

The same fate awaits others who ended up in the wrong hands and had to be rushed to the hospital. According to sources the institutions receivers between 50 and 60 cases everyday up from 40 cases in 2002.

Countrywide, public hospitals handle over 800 cases. Young girls between the ages of 14 to 25 make up the majority of patients who report at the facility to seek completion of failed abortions.

But while most settle for quacks a greater number resort to crude measures such as swallowing paraffin or taking an overdose of anti-malaria pills to induce abortion.

The girls are desperate to get rid of their pregnancies but cannot afford the fees charged by backstreet rag-tag health outlets. The bottom line according to a hospital source is that most abortions are done haphazardly with the end result being that the victims are impaired forever.

However experts now warn of even graver consequences. Dr Barcley M Onyamu of ANKH Women’s Clinic in Nairobi says injudicious abortion is the leading cause of maternal morbidity and mortality with almost 45 per cent of botched abortions ending up in death.

Botched abortions, Onyamu continues, also damage the cervix leading to future spontaneous abortions. "Unsafe abortions could also lead to the perforation of the uterus consequently leading to future inability to conceive," he says.

However, the doctor says that even if done professionally the biggest problem is the psychological trauma and emotional stress the subjects face afterwards. "Seekers of abortion forever live with the guilt that they killed their child," he says.

 

 

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