Women’s rights activists yesterday took to the picket line and called on the Medical Council of Guyana to investigate cases of unlicensed doctors, specifically in the fatal case of Karen Badal, and they also want Health Minister Dr Bheri Ramsaran to make abortion procedures accessible countrywide.
“We are picketing the Medical Council and the Ministry of Health to draw attention to the issue of safe motherhood and abortion access in Guyana, specifically the case of Karen Badal who was a young mother of two who died in December after a botched abortion that was done in a bottom house clinic by an unlicensed doctor,” organizer Sherlina Nageer told Stabroek News yesterday in front of the Ministry of Health’s Brickdam office.
Badal, 18, of Lot 2 North Vigilance, East Coast Demerara, was four months pregnant when she died as a result of a perforated uterus and acute peritonitis on December 30, 2011.
Nageer stated that no public statement from the Medical Council of Guyana has been heard and she further noted that based on information received, the police have offered to work in collaboration with the medical council but the body has indicated that it is not interested.
“We think if you really care about safeguarding women’s health, it’s important to work with the police on that,” she said.
Five months after the death of the young mother, Nageer said she and her fellow activists are calling for swifter action in the matter.
“We do have a legal act protecting women’s lives when having an abortion but it is not being implemented properly in that it’s not offered at the public facility so that makes it unaffordable. They have to go to private doctors and they can’t afford that, they end up at bottom house clinics with unlicensed butchers and their lives are at stake,” she asserted.
She further stated that the Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act talks about safe motherhood and reducing injuries from botched abortions but the procedures have not been implemented.
“It is already enshrined in law, it’s just making it a reality now. Don’t just say you care about women. Actually do things. We are saying safeguard women’s health, protect women’s health, enforce the laws of Guyana,” Nageer urged.
Also on the picket line was Stella Ramsaroop, founder of the S4 Foundation (Stella’s Sisterhood of Support and Service Foundation), who insisted that such situations should no longer occur.
“This type of thing can’t happen. Women can’t be dying because they need to be able to control when they decide to have babies and when they don’t want to have babies,” she said, adding that the doctor implicated should be held accountable.
“There are children who have no mother now simply because this man was reckless and women should be able to have access to these types of services in a medical facility, not a bottom house. They shouldn’t have to go to bottom houses. They should be able to go to medical facilities and find the proper care that they need and this young woman, she already had two kids and was 18 and ready to have another. She needed to be able to control when she was having a child and instead she ended up in a morgue. That’s not right,” Ramsaroop emphasized.
List of licensed
doctors
Other protestors agreed that a list of licensed doctors should be accessible to the public in order to avoid such instances from occurring.
“If they have a list of doctors they should publish it so people can become aware. If it’s on their (Medical Council) site, then not everyone can have access to a computer and also not everyone can read to get this sort of information. They should publish it in the papers and on the television,” one woman opined.
Meanwhile, Badal’s mother-in-law, Paramdar Persaud was also among the protestors while she carried the dead woman’s 2-year-old son. The woman called on the relevant authorities to do their jobs so that the family can get the justice they have been seeking for the past five months.
“We want justice for all women because she was a very small person and the doctor has no discretion. He went and do the abortion, she alone went to him, then he deny it. I want justice, the doctor is back on the job and this child and his brother have no mother,” Persaud said as her grandchild clung to her leg.
“Me got to work, me is a single parent. Me got a daughter still to mine and I got these grandchildren now. I got to find people to look them because me got to work,” she said, adding that Badal’s younger son is only eight-months-old.
She noted that the Medical Council had interviewed her and her family sometime back but failed to contact her with any updates since.
“The doctor is responsible because he damage her. When she went to get operation the other doctors tell we how he damaged her. They couldn’t save her, they tried, but they couldn’t,” Persaud insisted.
