Global Women's Voices: Share Personal Stories

Clara, Bolivia

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A woman came to a doctor in the hospital where I am a nurse. She had an IUD and she was worried because her period hadn't come. She went to the doctor who without doing any tests told her she was just anemic from the medications she was taking for her renal tuberculosis, and sent her home. By the time she was six months pregnant, she knew that something was wrong and she returned to the hospital.

There it was finally confirmed that she was pregnant and that the fetus was dead, most probably due to the tuberculosis medications she had been taking. But, before an abortion can be performed in Bolivia, in the case of health risk to the mother, a joint meeting has to be held by all the gynecologists in the hospital along with the hospital director where the case is looked at and decided on.

While almost always this decision is to go ahead with the abortion, the time that passes before the meeting is held and the decision is made is very critical to the health of the woman, and sometimes when too much time passes, there are complications.

Luckily in this case, the woman was fine once the procedure was done, although when she took the doctor who had misdiagnosed her from the beginning to court, nothing was done to him.

updated: 7/2/2004