Joyce Namutebi And Madinah Tebajjukira
1 July 2008
Kampala — MANY young girls have died, while others lost uteruses after using crude abortion methods, women MPs said yesterday. They urged the Government to make available post-abortion care services in all district hospitals and health centres to help the girls.
The legislators, under the Network of African Women Ministers and Parliamentarians, said the girls inserted bicycle spokes and sharp sticks into their reproductive organs to aid abortion.
The MPs, led by Sarah Nyombi, were briefing journalists at Parliament about findings from their visits to the districts of Kayunga, Mityana, Koboko, Kaberamaido, Mbarara and Rukungiri.
The legislators conducted the study between May and June to assess the quality of reproductive health.
Reporting about the situation in Mbarara, Jane Alisemera (Bundibugyo Woman) narrated a harrowing tale of how a pregnant young girl pushed a spoke into her intestines in an attempt to abort.
"She will have ill-health throughout her life," Alisemera observed. She decried the pathetic situation in health units.
"In Mityana Hospital, we found staff and their families being housed in former mortuaries and toilets, putting them in danger of picking infections from those rooms."
Alisemera proposed an intensive programme to guide girls on the dangers of early pregnancy.
In Gulu, Nyombi said they were disturbed to find human waste littering the corridors of Gulu Hospital, which is also the university teaching hospital.
In Kayunga, Nyombi noted that 60% of first-time expectant mothers were below 18 years.
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