- Obstetric violence declared as GBV and femicide in 2022 but its still prevelant.
- Public hospitals patrons face a larger risk of being harassed by healthcare workers when giving birth.
- Obstetric violence can result in infertility, disfigurement, disability and even death.
Shana Fife, 35, suffered a gruelling experience when she was about to give birth in 2018.
Coming in for her third cesarean birth at a Cape Town hospital, struggling with depression while managing her high-risk pregnancy, Shana found herself being shifted around the hospital - seemingly without cause.
When arriving for her scheduled c-section, she says, "I wasn’t on the list even though it was on my clinic card from the doctor. They were very visibly irritated with me that I had arrived."
She recalls only being given a bed after an hour and then her c-section birth proceeded, fortunately, with no complications. When she was transferred to the recovery ward, Shana remembers having to wait close to two hours to receive her pain medication. After giving birth to her baby girl, she had already begun experiencing severe pain waiting to be attended to.
In about 24 hours after the birth, she was transported back to a clinic in Mitchells Plain because the hospital wanted to make space for another patient.
Whilst waiting for the ambulance to transport her, the new mom had to sit on a chair against a cold wall, with no food, blankets or pediatricians checking up on her baby. Shana even recalls taking off her gown and using it to keep her baby warm.
"In the waiting room it's just up-straight chairs. The windows were open, this was in April, it's cold, my baby was also there with me. We were not given food until I asked for it. My daughter was supposed to be checked by a paediatrician, he did not arrive. I was not given the blanket I asked for my child so I had to take off my gown and close her with it."
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She ended up organising her own transport and was only given attention when she was about to leave.
A “PR nightmare” is what the admin staff called her because they forced her to stay a bit longer until she received the appropriate attention from the doctors. Eventually, a junior doctor examined her baby, with not much care, and told her that they could leave after the mediocre checkup.
A few days later, Shana was ambushed by the hospital’s lawyers and management when they invited her to a meeting to try and figure out whether she would be taking legal action. Due to the stress and fear caused by the hospital, she decided not to do so and let bygones be bygones.
Sadly, many other women have experienced such neglect in the hands of South Africa hospitals.
Survey finds half of women experience obstetric violence
Embrace, a social movement for mothers' rights, conducted the #CountOurBirth survey in 2023 and found of the 482 mothers they surveyed, 53 percent of the participants admitted to being violated at a healthcare facilities when they were giving birth.
Unfortunately, violence against mothers seems to have been so normalised that only 13,7 percent of the survey respondents made an attempt to report their experiences.
Even though obstetric violence was identified as a form of gender-based violence at the 2022 Presidential Summit on Gender-based Violence and Femicide, Embrace says there have been no satisfactory efforts made to assist the harassed mothers because there are no functional complaints process implemented, meaning that no one in the health institutions can be held legally accountable.
"Reporting was not easy and I think a lot of women end up losing the energy to see it through because it takes so much effort and financial resources. I dealt with the Health Professions Council of South Africa, the South African Nursing Council, the Department of Health, the clinic committee, district health managers, the hospital itself and the Centre for Gender Equality and still not much was concluded. In all this, there was no compassion and robotic responses that I almost gave up," an anonymous respondent told the advocacy group.
What can you do
Attorney Basetsana Koitsioe from the Centre for Applied Legal Studies at Wits University, says obstetric violence is an unrecognised term in South Africa and there is no specific charge for it. However, mothers who have experienced any abuse or misconduct from doctors should report them to the Health Professions Council of South Africa (HPCSA). Nurses can be reported to the South African Nursing Council (SANC).
READ MORE | Suing a doctor or hospital in SA: what are your rights?
She adds that these are the two main places where you can lay a complaint by just walking in, filling out a form, and then from there your cases will be investigated. If the results of the investigations are unsatisfactory, you can file a lawsuit against the healthcare facility or open a case of assault at a nearby police station.
The consequences of obstetric violence can be dire and can result in issues such as infertility, disfigurement, disability and even death.
The leader of the Embrace movement, Julie Mentor, says, "It's interesting that even though the prevalence of obstetric violence in private healthcare is a clear indicator of a systematic issue, our public healthcare is both overburdened and under-resourced," highlighting why public healthcare services are bound to have more cases of obstetric violence.
