Mom seeks class-action lawsuit over sterilization

An aboriginal woman who had a tubal ligation at Royal University Hospital hopes to launch a classaction lawsuit against the Saskatoon Health Region (SHR) and possibly the provincial and federal governments.

Melika Popp had the procedure in 2008 when she gave birth by emergency Cesarean section to her second child. She said she was misled into believing the procedure would be reversible.

Popp called a lawyer after learning in November of at least two other indigenous women who said they had been pressured into being sterilized against their wishes.

Lawyer Roch Dupont said he is still analyzing issues in the case. Popp and other women who have complained publicly were told their files had been flagged by Social Services for one reason or another. The purpose of flagging their files is not clear, he said.

“Why were they flagged? There had to have been a policy somewhere that said here is the criteria. I’m sure the flagging wasn’t done because one doctor or one nurse decided this needs to be done,” Dupont said.

“Was it a provincial government policy? Was it widespread? Was it from Social Services or was it a Ministry of Health policy?” Dupont said it seems unlikely front line workers were acting on their own, without any government authority.

In response to complaints in October, S HR implemented a new process so that only women who have decided with their physicians before coming to hospital will undergo tubal ligation following vaginal delivery.

Jackie Mann, vice-president of integrated services for the health region, said in October that the health region would bring in an outside investigator to look into the complaints and examine current practices. No one has been contracted to do the job, a spokesperson confirmed last week.

Popp was a single mother and was considering giving her baby up for adoption, but she changed her mind after the birth.

She’d arrived at the RUH emergency department six weeks before her baby’s due date and was quickly scheduled for the emergency procedure. Popp said the doctor who was to perform it came to her room in the maternity ward before the birth and suggested she have a tubal ligation, so she “wouldn’t land in this situation again.”

Popp said she was told the procedure was reversible and there would be no other lasting effects on her body.

“I trusted them. I believed them,” she said.

“I just feel violated as a human being, as a mother.”