Shahi of Bardiya district was sterilized by a Marie Stopes team despite the fact that she was nine-weeks pregnant and she suffered intestinal perforation due to a chance error in an operation that should not have been done in the first place. According to doctors, sterilization surgery is never done during pregnancy. Marie Stopes claims that the urine test conducted by the medical team had shown that Shahi wasn’t pregnant. In that case, either the test was done hastily or the team was highly incompetent because a gynecologist that Republica talked to claimed that a urine test will always confirm a pregnancy of nine weeks. Prior to the surgery, Shahi had also informed the team that she had not had her periods for two months.
Following the sterilization surgery on Jan 7, Shahi has been constantly under medical care. She is currently recovering, albeit slowly, at Kathmandu Medical College where she was admitted after undergoing a repair surgery at Nepalgung Medical College Teaching Hospital in Kohalpur.
After committing a series of medical blunders, Marie Stopes is now trying to cover up the entire incident, which is completely uncalled for. They had threatened the Shahi family that it would stop bearing the expenses of the treatment if they complained anywhere. Marie Stopes, which has otherwise been doing a fantastic job in Nepal, should understand that covering up a mistake is not the way to move forward. What it needs to do is publicly admit that it goofed up, stand by the victim and her family all along, take action against the members of the medical team who risked a person’s life either due to gross carelessness or sheer incompetence. Nothing less would suffice.
It is up to the otherwise fantastic organization to choose whether it wants to mar its reputation by trying to hide a single incident or move ahead with its head held high after admitting its fault and taking the necessary corrective measures.
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