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Dingilizwe Ntuli. Johannesburg. Sunday Times
(Johannesburg). Posted october 28, 2002, in AllAfrica.com.
Complaints of hysterectomies done without consent
ZIMBABWE'S health ministry has suspended a Cuban doctor from a referral
hospital in Bulawayo after complaints of numerous surgical removals of uteruses
from labour patients without their knowledge.
The Cuban doctors at Mpilo Hospital are reported to have removed more than
100 wombs from unsuspecting women in the last five months, raising suspicions
among Bulawayo residents of a hidden agenda .
Uteruses are usually removed from women with cancer or fibroids, but the
residents say none of the patients was diagnosed with either of the ailments.
They accused the Cuban doctors of using Bulawayo women as guinea pigs in "shadowy
experiments".
Bulawayo United Residents' Association chairman Edward Simela demanded that
the ministry of health dispel people's fears by explaining why these surgical
removals had gone unchecked for the past five months .
"If they keep quiet then we will start asking questions as to why this
is taking place in Bulawayo and not other parts of the country.
"People might end up reading too much into this issue.
"We should not just point fingers at the Cuban doctors. Maybe there is
a much bigger hidden hand which has authorised the use of our women in some
experiments," said Simela, without elaborating.
He said the aggrieved women complained that they had been informed by nurses
that they would not conceive again because their uteruses had been removed.
The women were in hospital to deliver babies in the hospital's maternity
wing.
Zimbabwe has been hard hit by an unprecedented exodus of professionals
fleeing a plethora of worsening ills.
Cuban doctors seem happy to replace their Zimbabwean counterparts leaving
for countries where they are better remunerated.
An estimated 6 000 doctors have left the country in the past two years to
seek economic refuge in neighbouring South Africa and Botswana, and in Britain,
the US, Australia and New Zealand.
Each of Zimbabwe's five major hospitals loses about 30 senior nurses and 10
doctors every month.
The hospitals each have about 300 nurses and 80 doctors. | 
