Some women are using sticks and coat hangers to terminate pregnancies – in unsafe and dangerous procedures, the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Health and Child Care revealed last week.

At least 80 000 illegal abortions are carried out in the country every year, making it difficult for the country to control its maternal mortality rate, the health portfolio committee chairperson Dr Ruth Labode told the August House.

“ Illegal abortions in Zimbabwe have increased from 60 000 to 80 000 per annum — which is very unsustainable.

“We have unsustainable costs of managing post-abortion complications in already overburdened health institutions. These girls go and have abortions by using sticks or coat hangers.
“When they bleed, they come to public institutions which are already burdened with other diseases,” she said.

Due to the unsafe procedures, Dr Labode said, other patients in hospitals were losing out as those that were taken to hospital after attempting to terminate pregnancies were given first priority.

“Once one goes to a public institution and is bleeding, it becomes an emergency. This patient will use blood which was supposed to be used for a road traffic accident to ensure that she survives.

We use the antibiotic which could have been given to a pneumonia case on the same girl to ensure that she survives. She occupies a bed of another patient who could have come there but we have to provide all these services to her. This cost is not sustainable currently in Zimbabwe,” she said.State media