To make matters worse for Kamala Shahi of Motipur in Shivapur-1, Bardiya district, she suffered intestinal perforation during the tubal ligation surgery. Kamala, 38, is currently undergoing treatment at Kathmandu Medical College (KMC), Sinamangal and may need additional major surgery. [break]
Awareness led to tragedy
Kamala already had five children, including three daughters, after 14 years of marriage to Dan Bahadur, a village mechanic who earns a meager amount fixing sundry mechanical problems. Kamala and mother-in-law Bhakta work hard to help Dan Bahadur support the family. The Shahis don´t have anything apart from three or four kattha of land and were finding it difficult raising the five kids.
Kamala heard that a sterilization camp was being held by Marie Stopes in neighboring Bhurigaun village in Naulapur Village Development Committee (VDC), some five kilometers from her home. She went to the camp on January 7 with a friend for sterilization but told the medical team there that she had not had her period for two months.
“I told them that I would get sterilized if I was not pregnant but not if I was,” Kamala says. “They did a urine test, felt around my stomach, said I was not pregnant and got me sterilized,” Kamala adds.
She showed the effects of intestinal perforation and felt nausea immediately upon returning home from the operation. Dan Bahadur took Kamala to Nepalgunj Medical College Teaching Hospital in Kohalpur as the problems persisted for a couple of days.
An ultra-sound showed that she was two months and eight days pregnant and, furthermore, doctors there diagnosed that she had suffered a cut in her intestine during the sterilization surgery. She was given repair surgery for the intestine.The foetus aborted, she has been at KMC in a critical condition since mid-January when the Kohalpur hospital referred her urgently to Kathmandu.
“She has a hole in the intestine -- we call it fecal fistula -- and she was admitted here in a life-threatening condition,” Senior Surgeon at KMC Dr Praveen Thapa said. He said her digestive system has not been functioning properly and stool is leaking from the hole. “We have been feeding her through intravenous means to compensate the loss from leakage,” Dr Thapa added.
She has recovered slightly and is out of danger but her intestinal wound has not healed and may require further major surgery, according to Dr Thapa.
Marie Stopes admits mistake
Marie Stopes have been bearing all the medical expenses of the case, around Rs 7,000 per day, according to KMC, but is apparently trying to hush up matters. This scribe had to go through a long process with the KMC administration before getting permission to visit the ward and was confronted by a Marie Stopes staffer while speaking with the family.
“They have told us not to complain anywhere about the case, otherwise they would not bear the expenses,” disclosed mother-in-law Bhakta, who is also in Kathmandu with Kamala´s 18-month daughter. “We have taken precautions because this is a sensitive case and can damage our reputation,” said a senior medical official with Marie Stopes who was summoned by the staffer present at the ward.
The senior official, who preferred not to be named, admitted that a mistake was made but requested this scribe not to publish the story as a dent in their reputation could have an adverse impact on population work in the country.
“There are many cases in a camp and the team is always in a hurry. And even urine tests may not always be correct,” he said trying to defend his staff. But a senior gynecologist in Kathmandu refuted the claim and argued that a urine test will always confirm a pregnancy of nine weeks. “It can even be physically felt in most cases,” the gynecologist claimed and maintained that sterilization surgery should never be done during pregnancy. If at all the woman insisted she should first undergo abortion.
The Shahis fear that Kamala may never be as strong as before. They have already spent around Rs 30,000 that they borrowed from a local co-operative for travel and food expenses for attending relatives.
“Our first concern is the well-being of the patient. We will think about compensation once she gets well,” the senior Marie Stopes official said. But Marie Stopes was non-committal about any action against the blundering staffers at the camp. “We will get to them (staffers) and warn them not to repeat such mistakes,” was all the official promised.
premdhakal@myrepublica.com
Related story
Debunking 5 common myths on plastic surgery (with video)
