Kenya’s medics board: It's hard to smoke out rogue medical workers

NAIROBI: Efforts to arrest medical doctors suspected of providing illegal abortion services have failed to bear fruit as they operate with a high level of secrecy.

Medical Practitioners and Dentists Board Chief Executive Officer Daniel Yumbya says they have conducted many raids on facilities believed to be carrying out illegal abortions but the raids have never yielded any evidence.

According to Dr Yumbya, in the board's history, no medical doctor has ever been referred to them for providing illegal abortion services.

"Illegal abortions are done very secretly and rooting out the vice remains a challenge. Those seeking the services and those providing it know how to remain undetected. But our investigations are continuing," he said.

Yumbya added: "We also believe that illegal abortions are done by persons who are not medical doctors. They may be other cadres of health personnel who want to gain an extra income illegally. Others are not medical personnel but just crooks," he said.

According to the Ministry of Health, there are about 465,000 abortions every year in Kenya but the figure could be much higher.

This means that abortion rates are as high as 48 abortions per 1,000 women of reproductive age (15-49 years).

Under the Constitution, abortion may be granted to a pregnant woman or girl, when in the opinion of a trained health professional, she needs emergency treatment or her life or health is in danger.

EMERGENCY TREATMENT

According to the abortion policy of the Government, the procedure is only permitted to save the life of a pregnant woman, or to preserve her physical and mental health. Rape or incest, impairment of the foetus, economic and social reasons are not considered legal grounds for procuring an abortion.

The policy says legal abortion must be performed by a certified physician, with the consent of the woman and her spouse. Two medical opinions, one of which must be from the physician who has treated the woman and the other from a psychiatrist, are required before the abortion is performed. The abortion must also be performed in a hospital.

A study conducted last year by the African Population and Health Research Centre (APHRC) and the Ministry of Health on the incidence of unsafe abortions found that 119,912 women in Kenya received care for complications of induced abortions in health facilities last year.

The study established that women of all demographic and social groups; educated and uneducated women, urban and rural women, students, unemployed and employed women as well as married, never-married and divorced women, suffered abortion complications.

"Severe complications of unsafe abortions were most common among women aged 10-19 (45 per cent), divorced women (56 per cent), and women who reported to the provider that they had interfered with the continuation of the pregnancy (58 per cent)," said the report.

The study showed that about 23 per cent of the women who went for post-abortion care had mild complications, 40 per cent had moderately severe complications and 37 per cent had severe complications.