Failed by the health system, Zim
Her contractions peaked and the screams got louder. Yet, no one at the government clinic in Harare where she was admitted to give birth, came to check on her.
For over six hours, Letwin Siyampongo lay on the bed, hoping a nurse or a doctor would attend to her.
The moment Siyampongo felt immense pressure and knew the baby was coming out she screamed for help again.
Again, no one came. And just then, her baby son slipped out — falling right onto the bare floor of the clinic.
The baby lay in a pool of blood, crying, and Siyampongo stood there helpless, not knowing what else to do except call for help.
“I was relieved that [at least] he was alive,” she says.
The baby’s head and one eye were injured. After the birth, the nurses came in and wrapped the baby in towels.
As Siyampongo squirmed in pain, she says, they shouted at her for giving birth in their absence and left.
It was only when her motherin-law came during visiting hours the next morning that the baby was dressed, and Siyampongo ate.
The same morning, she went home. “I was better off at my home than the clinic,” she says.
Siyampongo isn’t the only woman in the country who says she has experienced disrespect, negligence and abuse while seeking maternity services, but she is among the few who decided to go to court to seek justice and accountability from the public health system — a sector that has fallen apart in recent years following years of economic and political instability.
Research conducted in 2021 by social scientists Adelaide Mufandaedza and Manase Chiweshe on one Harare hospital found that women seeking maternal health care experience all forms of discrimination, and some have normalised this as part of childbirth.
“Class and power are at the root of understanding how poor women often experience disrespectful and demeaning experiences in maternal care,” the study says.
The researchers argue that this situation is worsened by the lack of knowledge around women’s health rights and the lack of accountability from health professionals — a gap that organisations such as the Harare-based Women and Law in Southern African Research and Education Trust (WLSA) are trying to fill.
The organisation’s senior legal officer, Hilda Mahumucha says even though duty bearers are obligated to provide quality health services, people here do not know that “duty bearers can be held accountable”.
Siyampongo, represented by WLSA, is suing the Harare City Council, which owns the clinic, among others.
Her ask is clear: She wants the clinic to acknowledge that what staff did to her was wrong and assure her through proper medical examinations, the cost of which is too high for her to bear, that her son has not incurred any permanent damage.
Siyampongo’s hope in the judicial system solidified after she learned about Valerie Chibaya, a mother who lost her baby in June 2020 because of medical negligence at a local hospital and took her case to court with the help of legal aid provided by WLSA.
The High Court found the hospital negligent and ordered it to pay Chibaya a compensation of $900 000.
The compensation, the order said, was for “her pain and suffering”.
After Chibaya’s groundbreaking