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AN ILLEGAL abortion clinic has been operating from an East London house near the Walter Sisulu University’s College Street campus.

There, an abortionist offers to dispense medicine to terminate a pregnancy for R1250 a dose.

Now the Health Professions Council of South Africa – the body responsible for SA’s medical standards – has condemned the clinic’s activities, calling them not only illegal but potentially life-threatening.

The clinic’s activities were disclosed after a Dispatch reporter, posing as a six-week pregnant woman in need of an abortion, and a colleague visited the house in Pert Street.

The investigation was prompted by a phone call about flyers distributed around East London which promote healing methods and “native herbs and medicines”. The person who answered the cellphone agreed to take us for an abortion.

We met Maama Mindi, who offered us “quick-fix” tablets that should be vaginally inserted and would, she claimed, dissolve the contents of the uterus.

“Trust me, it is safe. At six weeks it’s not a baby yet, just blood,” she told the Dispatch’s investigation team inside a cramped room in the house, the walls of which were plastered with posters promoting “Quality, Reliable Herbal Remedies” offered by Mindi and a Professor Kamu from Kilimanjaro.

Mindi, who said she had already attended to five clients by 11am that morning, promised that the three hours leading to a normal menstruation would be totally painless.

“Do not be scared, my dear. Immediately it’s out you are protected,” she said in broken English.

Mindi, who said she could give abortions to women who are up to six months’ pregnant, said she had successfully aborted a 20-week pregnant woman that morning. The mother was at that moment in the bathroom washing herself.

But when details were given to Health Professions Council registrar Boyce Mkhize, he immediately warned: “Performing a function which falls under the scope of a medical practitioner is a criminal act and contravenes the Health Professions Act.”

An abortion on women between 12 and 21 weeks’ pregnant could only be performed, he said, by registered medical practitioners.

Doing so without the necessary qualifications was tantamount to “masquerading as a doctor”.

Mindi admitted to the Dispatch that she had no medical background but said she relied on seven years’ experience.

She claimed to have worked for the Marie Stopes national abortion clinics.

As a woman, she also knew what she was doing, she insisted.

Marie Stopes spokesperson Jock Strachan said employees without Termination of Pregnancy training were not involved in the procedures, as stipulated in the Choice of Termination of Pregnancy (TOP) Act.

“Pregnancies within the first 12 weeks are attended to by registered nurses and midwives who have had TOP training. Beyond that, it becomes a doctor’s duty,” he said.

According to the Medical Control Council (MCC), which regulates drug dispensing in South Africa, it was a criminal offence to be illegally in possession of or to dispense scheduled drugs.

Department of Health spokesperson Fidel Hadebe, on behalf of the MCC, said: “TOP drugs can only be prescribed by a doctor, and they can only be dispensed in controlled dosages by a pharmacist.”

East London gynaecologist Dr Nomgcobo Sangoni said Cytotec tablets, initially prescribed to induce labour, were also used for abortions, a procedure that should only legally be carried out by trained medical practitioners.

The tablets, she said, bring on the onset of contractions but do not guarantee the expulsion of the contents.

“This could lead to partial abortion, heavy bleeding, sepsis and death,” Sangoni added.

“In the instance of a second trimester abortion, the placenta might be so attached to the uterus walls that the contractions are not strong enough to remove it.

“If the woman does not get immediate emergency surgery her womb could rupture and she could bleed to death.”

Although Mindi insisted that her process was painless, a nurse at Frere’s TOP clinic said that, after the administration of the medication, patients needed constant monitoring to ensure that they did not dehydrate or collapse from pain.

“There will be pain. In most cases it is accompanied by fever, diarrhoea, nausea and dizziness,” she said.

Once the cervix was dilated enough, the uterus was cleaned out and a scan used to confirm that nothing remained.

“Without this process the uterus could become septic, causing profuse bleeding and, without treatment, death.”

The Dispatch tried on several further occasions to speak to the contact person who took us to Mindi and to Mindi herself but our calls went unanswered. - By NTANDO MAKHUBU

Health Reporter