Following Saturday Sun’s story, last week about a
woman who was allegedly raped by her doctor, more women who had equally
fallen victims of alleged abuse in the past have come out to recount
their ordeals.
Many of the women, identified in this report by their
first names to protect their full identities, who had been traumatised
by their experiences with family doctors and fertility doctors alike,
narrated their heart-breaking experiences amidst tears and regret.
Remi narrated her timely escape from a doctor who wanted to take
advantage of her in the past. She said that while she was still dating
her husband, she became pregnant but they decided to abort the baby
because they were not ready for the responsibilities then. The first
doctor they consulted revealed that her body was stiff and that he could
not terminate the pregnancy.
They eventually settled for a popular hospital at Orile Iganmu, Lagos
where the doctor assured them that he would carry out the process. They
paid in him in full for the procedure, but on the appointed day, he
tried to penetrate her based on the excuse that he needed her body to be
flexible enough to flush out the foetus.
‘’On the appointed day for the evacuation, I went with my then
boyfriend, now my husband, to the hospital. I was invited to the theatre
only for me to storm out minutes later because the doctor said that my
body was very tight and the only way out was for him to rub a gel on
his penis, penetrate me, so that he would be able to terminate my
pregnancy’’, she said.
Naomi’s case was not different. She was molested by a
gynaecologist, who works in one of the general hospitals in Lagos.
Recounting her ordeal with an emotion-laden voice, she revealed that it
took her two years to summon the courage to speak up and when she did,
the doctor came begging.
‘’I suffered secondary infertility. My first child was nine years
old at the time this gynaecologist used his fingers indiscriminately
during a follicle tracking scan. I questioned him about the use of his
hands instead of the transducer, but he told me to keep quiet that he
was just trying to help me.’’
She became uncomfortable and threatened to scream, so he allowed her
to go. Visibly shaken, she left the hospital and never went back. But
she eventually shared with her husband what transpired between her and
the gynaecologist after someone shared a similar story of an alleged
molestation by the same doctor.
‘’He initially thought he could intimidate me when I came out to
speak, when he observed that I refused to back down because I recorded
our conversation without his knowledge, he started begging and also
sent many people to beg on his behalf. We later settled the matter
amicably after my husband begged me to drop it.’’
Kelechi has been married for four years and had problems conceiving. A
friend directed to a gynaecologist in Egbeda area of Lagos and she
almost got raped by him.
‘’I went into the doctor’s office and he told me to lie down for him
to check my stomach. Before I knew what was happening, he grabbed my
breasts and started fondling them. I screamed, slapped him and tried to
get up, but he started struggling with me. My screams attracted his
nurses who rushed into his office and met us struggling. That was when
he released me.’’
Perpetual was nearly raped by her doctor, but the fear of stigma has
kept her back from actually pursuing the case. She had visited a
popular hospital in Lagos when she was having problems conceiving and
the doctor was so unprofessional.
‘’The doctor inserted an instrument inside me and he was turning it
in a gentle movement and looking at the screen. He later removed it and
put it inside again, only that I didn’t know it wasn’t the instrument
that entered. I closed my eyes because the procedure was a bit
uncomfortable and didn’t know it was his penis that entered me the
second time.’’
He continued with the same movement he made with the instrument and
all the while she thought what was inside her was what he inserted
before. She felt so bad. And overcome with shame for having gone through
such an experience, she refused to visit any hospital again for years
not minding her childless situation.
Nwaneka was also a victim of these unprofessional doctors. She
visited a hospital in Ikeja, Lagos for some tests and a doctor touched
her clitoris while performing examination.
‘’I didn’t think much of it until he looked at me in the eyes,
smiled and he said some people’s clit are as fine as their face. At that
point, I became very alert. I guess he must have noticed the change in
my demeanour, he told me to get up.’’
For women doing all manner of fertility procedures, there is enough
shame lying on that table and more so if it’s a painful procedure, many
women distract themselves by closing their eyes. In Eno’s case, she
wasn’t so lucky, as the doctor not only raped her, but got her pregnant.
Her son is almost 12 years old and has no idea that he is a product of
rape.
Recounting her experience was difficult because recently, the doctor
had come begging and she was torn between letting her son knew what
happened in the past and also facing her husband who had no idea that
her supposed last born brother of her mother, is actually her son.
‘’He was the elder brother of my childhood friend. He was like a
family member. Even my mother welcomed him into our home. I had a bout
of malaria after my sixteenth birthday and was sent to the hospital
where he works for treatment’’
Taking advantage of her ill health, her supposed family doctor
abused his profession by having sex with her forcefully. Out of fear
and stigmatisation, she kept the details of her rape to herself until
her mother discovered she was pregnant months after.
She opened up to her mother, who took her straight to confront her
abuser, but he denied everything. He even called her names for trying
to smear his reputation as a doctor. He offered to abort the baby for
free if they were interested to save her from being a public ridicule
in their small town in Akwa Ibom State.
‘’I was more devastated after we met with him to tell him about my
pregnancy. My mom insisted on me keeping the baby because of her
Christian faith. I had my son and left him for my mother, while I came
to Lagos to finish my secondary education. Today, he says he wants his
son back. I am so angry and emotionally drained at the same time.’’
When Rita visited a fertility expert last year in Enugu for help,
she had no idea what was in stock for her. The doctor had carried out
tubal surgery and given her tablets to help her get pregnant and said
she should contact him once she gets a positive pregnancy test, so as to
identify the implantation site as she had high risk of ectopic
pregnancy due to the surgery.
To her delight, she became pregnant months after. She immediately
booked a scan with him when she started spotting blood and having some
stomach pains. But when he began the scan, she noticed it took him ages
to complete as he kept probing into her vagina with a probe.
‘’I could see on the screen he was counting my follicles. Anyway, he
took the probe out and I didn’t know where his nurse went to at the
time. All the way through, he seemed unable to concentrate and kept
staring at my privates and his expressions indicated he was enjoying
himself. Then he touched my clitoris with his hands and I went
berserk.’’
Instead of him to be remorseful, he just touched himself down there
as if to check something, and walked away as he looked at her up and
down and winked. He was reluctant to go. Even after he informed her that
she had an ectopic pregnancy, he was still looking for an opportunity
to touch her body, but the timely entrance of one of the nurses into the
examination room saved her lots of troubles.
‘’I began to remember things afterwards. I remember he was looking at
my legs and privates and panting. I cannot remember where his other
hand was. It all happened so fast. I remembered his facial expression as
he was enjoying himself at my expense.’’
Feeling ashamed for being violated by someone she trusted so much,
Rita still feels like a fool for letting him get away with his
inappropriate behaviour. She is still angry with herself for not
screaming at him to attract the attention of her sister waiting for her
in the hall way.
‘’I was just so shocked and was not sure whether what I was seeing
was right. I just did not know what was happening to me. I feel such a
fool remembering this now. I completely trusted this guy but he let me
down,” she added.
Patience was referred to a new gynaecologist for her fertility issues
two years ago by her neighbour. During one of my follicle tracking
sessions, he went overboard by using his fingers instead of the
transducer.
‘’He used his fingers in a way that seemed he was attempting to
arouse me. He stimulated my clitoris. He then began the internal
examination. He inserted one finger inside me and made a fist with the
other fingers.’’
Even after completing the session, he did not remove his finger. He
was rocking his knuckles on the outside and pushing his finger deeper
and harder inside of her. She yelled in pain and struggled to get up
from the table. He was taken aback by her swiftness and helped her up
and hurried her to dress up.
In her own case, Ronke Awe claimed that her doctor sedated and raped
her when she was down with typhoid and malaria attack sometime in 2013.
The 23-year old who was 20 when the incident happened said she told her
mother who asked her to keep quiet and never talk about it in order not
to prevent her from getting a man to marry in future. “I went to see a
doctor after a week-long treatment of malaria and typhoid as indicated
by the medical test. I decided to go to the hospital for a proper
treatment. After all the necessary process of seeing the doctor, he
asked that I be admitted in the hospital for few days. It was private a
hospital. This happened in the night. When my younger sister who was
taking care of me went home that night as the doctor had assured that I
would be taken good care of, the doctor came in the night to give me an
injection. Casually, I demanded to know the type of drug he was trying
to administer on me, but he refused to disclose it, not knowing that it
was a sedative. It was when I woke the next day I realised that
something happened to me. When I told my mum, she advised me not to let
anyone know about it”, she stated.
While Ronke fell into this unwholesome trap as a result of illness,
Mary Akpan told of how a doctor tricked her and had canal knowledge of
her. Ronke was married for five years without a child. After going for
different tests to ascertain her fertility, she was advised by a friend
to go and check the state of her fallopian tube. So, she went for the
test which is called HSG. This is to establish whether her fallopian
tube was blocked. Instead of using ink which is the normal instrument
used for the test, the lab technician suggested that he uses his penis.
Another victim who pleaded to remain anonymous said: “I wish I was a
lawyer, I would personally take up this case and ensure that the randy
doctor is behind bar. They did the same thing to me and I could not
speak out because I did not want to lose my husband, so I kept quiet. I
actually visited a medical doctor in Ikotun, Lagos. It was my friend
that referred me to him. She also had issues with conceiving and
convinced me that it was the doctor that gave her solution. I started
going there and the doctor gave me a tablet and before I knew what was
happening, I lost control. He had sex with me and when I opened my eyes
and discovered what he did, he started begging and even promised to
drive away his wife and marry me. I was so ashamed of myself that I did
not tell my friend what happened. I simply stopped going to that clinic.
So for that woman to be bold, Nigerians and rights activists should
come to her defense.”
culled from SUN