Hospital procedures for sterilisations

PUBLIC confidence in public hospitals is so poor that it’s easy to believe damaging reports about the standard of care patients receive at these facilities.

Without trying to discredit reports about aggrieved patients who allegedly suffered forced sterilisation at the hands of nurses and doctors, as exposed by eNCA on Checkpoint this week, my sincerest sympathy goes to the young woman who allegedly lost her uterus at Addington Hospital in KZN.

Apparently, her uterus had to be removed. It was septic as she said there was fluid oozing from the surgical wound. Maybe the sepsis was so bad that, if it continued despite many antibiotics, she would have ended up with septicaemia which would have killed her, in which case a choice had to be made – remove the uterus and save her life or spare the uterus and let her die.

In most cases, such a decision is taken when the patient is already under anaesthesia. The operating doctors usually phone the superintendent of the hospital to seek permission to continue with the life-saving operation because the patient would not have signed for that unforeseen situation.

Usually Caesarean section patients have to be asked if they would like to be sterilised. This is usually done after they’ve had other children. This in no way is to suggest that they are being forced to sterilise. This is the procedure in all hospitals, public and private.

In theatre, the surgeons will check if the patient has signed for sterilisation or not. This is the practice internationally – if the patient wanted to be sterilised and this was not done, they can sue the doctor if they fall pregnant.

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