Healthcare is failing women
Nomsa, a 20-year-old woman from Mthatha in the Eastern Cape, showed me a scar on her thigh. She said it came from a wound inflicted by a nurse at a community health centre in 2010. The nurse, Nomsa said, used a pair of scissors "to make me open my legs when I was in labour".
She was one of the more than 150 women from the Eastern Cape whom I interviewed between October 2010 and April this year as part of a Human Rights Watch project about their experiences with maternity care. I found that pregnant women and new mothers were abused regularly by health workers, especially nurses, who were supposed to provide them with care. Doctors, ambulance drivers and dispatchers -- and sometimes even cleaners and security guards -- also abused women, we found.
South Africa has one of the world's highest incidences of violence, including rape and domestic violence, against women. A study by Interpol estimates that, in South Africa, a woman is raped every 17 seconds and one in four South African women suffers domestic violence.
http://mg.co.za/article/2011-12-20-healthcare-is-failing-women
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