Abortion nurse wants job back
2003-12-02 12:37
Sizwe samaYende
Groblersdal - An Mpumalanga nurse who was struck off the nurse's roll last year following a humiliating TV exposé that showed her mishandling abortion patients, hopes to return to work next year.
Sewela Ramaboea, 35, said this week that she was under severe stress at Mpumalanga's biggest hospital, Philadelphia, at the time of the exposé and that there was no support from health authorities.
"I was emotionally agonised and had nightmares that made me stop eating red meat," Ramaboea commented for the first time after M-Net's investigative programme Carte Blanche's aired the footage in June last year.
"There was no counselling or any other support one would expect to get for working in a termination of pregnancy (TOP) ward," said the single mother of a 16-year-old daughter.
M-Net secretly installed cameras that captured Ramaboea shouting at women in the abortion ward and leaving them to deliver foetuses on their own, and clean their own mess.
Ramaboea has served her 12-month ban by the South African Nursing Council, but she has to wait until February next year for the council to discuss re-registering her.
"I definitely intend to come back," said Ramaboea. "Nursing is my vocation, but I was not aware that I would be under such tremendous stress when I volunteered to attend courses to work in the TOP ward."
The council found Ramaboea guilty of a string of charges, including improper or disgraceful conduct, negligence, verbal and psychological abuse of patients and failure to provide privacy for patients.
South African Nursing Council registrar and chief executive officer Hasina Subedar said Ramaboea's case was on the council's agenda at a meeting this week, but that the matter was postponed until the next sitting in February.
Provincial health department spokesperson Dumisani Mlangeni said Ramaboea had been forgiven and would be allowed to re-apply for a job at the province's understaffed hospitals.
"The department will accept her as if nothing happened," he said. "She has served her punishment and the ball is in her court now."
The department hauled Ramaboea before a disciplinary hearing after the footage, but found her not guilty after patients refused to testify and her union, the South African Democratic Nurses' Union (Sadnu), argued that the tape could have been tampered with since it showed only her and no other nurses.
Sadnu and two other unions, the National Education, Health and Allied Workers Union (Nehawu) and the Democratic Nursing Organisation of South Africa (Demosa), stood by Ramaboea and even defended nurses who believed abortion was immoral.
They criticised Philadelphia authorities for not separating expectant mothers, new mothers and women undergoing abortions. They all shared one ward.
Unionists also complained that doctors admitted women for abortions even if they were above the legal limit of 12 weeks into their pregnancy.
Philadelphia performs about 70 abortions in a month.
- African Eye