How Medic Turned his Sacking into a Reproductive Rights Mission
6 Oct 2008
But in the midst of the storm one scientist stands undeterred by attacks from opponents, firm in his resolve that every woman has the right to determine her own reproductive life.
Talk about the ever-controversial subject, and Dr Solomon Orero will be happy to explain the surgical practice as well as the wider issue.
The bespectacled 53-year-old father of three could hardly be mistaken for a militant; when he speaks in his low voice, you might think he is a diplomat trying to convince a government why women deserve better reproductive health lifestyles or a controversial pastor trying to convince his congregation of the need to respect women's rights.
His calm demeanor belies the fact that he is a relentless advocate for the reproductive rights of African women.
Eleanor Roosevelt Award
This advocacy earned him the 2008 Eleanor Roosevelt Award, a global women's rights award given by the Feminist Majority Foundation in Los Angeles.
He was honoured for his role in serving the reproductive needs of women alongside Dr Nafis Sadik, a former executive director of the United Nations Population Fund, UNFPA, Maria Luisa Sanchez Fuentes and Mira Sorvino, both pro-choice activists.
He received a trophy and $30,000.
"There is a very big discrepancy in health care for those who can afford it and those who cannot afford it.
"The chances of someone dying from a pregnancy related complication in a place like Mathare are much higher than for a person living in Karen," he said.
This is a perspective the gynaecologist derives from his formative years at Kenyatta National Hospital.
As a doctor who had just graduated from the University of Nairobi School of Medicine, time and again he encountered women who had succumbed to pregnancy complications.
This bothered him a lot and fuelled his resolve to champion women's rights. His advocacy was also born from listening to stories from his colleagues who worked in hardest-hit areas and watched women die from pregnancy complications.
Challenging places
The island of Lamu, the Lake Victoria region and North Eastern Province, he said, are the most challenging places because a high number of women die from complications in childbirth.
As a maternity ward doctor, he recalls attending to between 30 to 60 admissions a day of women with complications arising from botched abortions.
"That meant that the workload was heavy. Patients were many. They were people who deserved to be attended to very urgently," he said.
"But a lot of us regarded women who presented themselves with complications of unsafe abortion as criminals, as people who deserved to suffer because they had induced the abortion.
"Any patient should be accorded appropriate, timely, compassionate treatment, despite the nature of the disease."
Such incidences are the ones that drove him to think of how he could help these women. The gynaecologist cannot stop talking about his experiences.
He recalls one instance when a young girl who had been raped was rushed to Kenyatta National Hospital. It was a normal day; he was attending to his duties at the maternity and labour wing where he was in charge.
As Dr Orero made the rounds of the wards, his pager went off, and the blaring siren of an ambulance at the emergency entrance signalled that something was amiss.
An adult had raped a 14-year-old girl, and as he looks back, it was that moment that has made Dr Orero challenge all those who are against legalising abortion.
"Is it fair for that girl that when she has a problem, you ignore her, or she bears an unwanted child? How does she think about the society; will she hate the society?" Dr Orero asked during an interview with Lifestyle.
Medicine was not on his mind when he was growing up in Kawere village in Nyanza Province although the escalating incidences of complications in pregnancy bothered him.
"The decision to join medicine came when I was in high school," he said, alluding to the seriousness of poor maternal health in Ndhiwa constituency and the lack of doctors.
He said he had initially wanted to be an artist and perhaps an engineer but opted for sciences in Form Five.
Speaks passionately
Dr Orero speaks passionately and at length about issues of reproductive health.
"Abortion is a problem in Kenya. Just go to our public hospitals and then walk into acute gynaecology wards; at least 50 per cent of theses admissions are abortion-related," he said, adding that obstructed labour, haemorrhage and high blood pressure are major killers of pregnant women.
Health professionals at all levels, he said, have ethical and legal obligations to respect women's rights.
"In our country the subject of right to health, especially reproductive health, is always equated with the right to abortion, which is not the case.
"Reproductive health is not just a major health issue; it is a developmental and human rights issue. This explains why there is so much disparity in the reproductive health care and delivery between the rich and the poor," he said.
Getting pregnant in some parts of Africa is like buying your coffin, he said. He cited South Sudan, Somalia, Cote d'Ivoire and Liberia as places where most women encounter reproductive health challenges.
This desire to champion women's reproductive health rights is something he attributes to his early days as a medical student; and he pays glowing tribute to his former lecturer, Khama Rogo, who is now with the World Bank.
"Dr Khama Rogo was a very inspiring lecturer and one of my role models. I used to see a lot of sense in what he used to do. I used to see him organise to treat women who couldn't afford surgery," he said.
"I thought that was very unique. He is a specialist in cancer. His belief that every woman, irrespective of her background, should get the best, inspired me."
Carrying 25 years of medical experience in his stethoscope, Dr Orero has trained a cross-section of health workers, particularly nurses and midwives, to be able to effectively manage pregnancy-related emergencies like bleeding.
Transfer skills
"In doing that I have been able to transfer skills-which were the preserve of doctors-to these mid-level professionals who are the ones who more often than not are in those hot areas so that they can manage those emergencies," he said.
He vividly recalls an incident in Faiza Island, Lamu, where he had trained a clinical officer on how to manage pregnancy complications, including obstructed labour.
"In this particular instance, this man received a woman with obstructed labour, and the baby was abnormal. He had a very big head and was already dead.
"This man was able to do what I had taught him, and the woman was able to deliver the baby, and her life was saved."
But it is an incident in Garissa where he had trained a nurse how to deal with high blood pressure in pregnancy and other complications that he speaks of with great emotion.
When a doctor had just flown to Nairobi on official duty, moments later a patient left under the care of the nurses moved to what Dr Orero terms "shock".
The woman was bleeding, and the nurses were thinking hard of what they could do to save her life.
"At first they told themselves ‘we are not authorised to conduct surgery. But if we don't, we shall watch her die.'
They remembered what I used to say; a doctor is just a title," Dr Orero said, adding the nurses eventually conducted surgery and tied a blood vessel that hadn't been tied properly, and the woman survived.
Certain circumstances
There are certain circumstances where nurses are more knowledgeable than doctors, he said.
Looking back, Dr Orero believes in the adage, ‘‘things happen for a reason'' when in 1994 he was summarily relieved of his duties at Kenyatta National Hospital for allegedly participating in a strike by doctors.
"I was one of the unfortunate people to have been sacked in that strike. I say unfortunate because I was not one of the leaders of the strike. We were six who were sacked."
This was a blessing in disguise as he said he was forced into private practice and seriously thought about reproductive health.
"I found myself as a voice championing women's right to access reproductive health. One of my passions was that women should not get pregnant when they did not want to.
Our evaluation was that only 39 percent of women who want to use family planning get access to it," said Dr Orero who was involved in reproductive health training in Upsalla, Sweden, in 1994.
Brewed alcohol
Although his mother brewed alcohol to raise funds to pay school fees, he said he hardly knows how alcohol tastes. He is an avid reader of novels.
Married to Risper, a former university lecturer, he finds comfort in his family of three children who were born five years apart.
Bethseda, the eldest daughter, works in San Francisco in the United States, Richard is an engineering student at Jomo Kenyatta University of Technology and the last-born, Beryl, is in Form Three at Alliance Girls High School.
Abortion and controversy are closely intertwined
Abortion has always been a controversial topic the world over. In America as well as in Kenya, it is a subject that is treated with utmost caution.
Not many people would support it. But with or without the controversy that it carries, there are a few who have resolved to take a stab and champion its legalisation.
In June this year, two of the four contributors to the global advancement of human rights were honoured by the Feminist Majority Foundation, an organisation founded in 1987 and America's largest feminist research and action organisation dedicated to women's equality, reproductive health and non-violence for their role in championing abortion.
Mira Sorvino, Dr Solomon Orero, Dr Nafis Sadik and Maria Luisa Sanchez Fuentes were commended for emulating Eleanor Roosevelt's spirit in championing women's rights.
Peace movement
Mrs Roosevelt was a significant figure in the peace movement in the early 20th century. She championed America's inclusion in the world court and was opposed to war.
Her advocacy did not pass unnoticed by President Harry Truman who, in 1945, appointed her a member of the United States delegation to the UN where she was elected to the Human Rights Commission's sub-committee.
And it is in the same spirit that Dr Orero and Ms Fuentes were recognised for their zest to champion the reproductive needs of women and advancement of better health care.
Dr Sadik was recognised for her role in supporting population policies in regard to women's rights. She has also addressed maternal mortality, Aids and education for girls when she was the executive director of UNFPA.
Ms Sorvino, an Oscar-winning actress, was recognised for her role in fighting human trafficking and calling for an end to violence against women.
Dr Orero has found himself on the warpath with the moralists' camp as an abortion-rights champion. He has candidly and bravely spoken against Kenya's abortion laws, sometimes even giving an opinion about women's reproductive health.
The Feminist Majority Foundation acknowledged the fact that Dr Orero had never endorsed Kenya's position in outlawing abortion and using it to save a woman's life.
As the debate about legalising abortion in Kenya rages, last year, after a spirited campaign, abortion was decriminalised in Mexico City. Maria Luisa Sanchez Fuentes (one of the beneficiaries of the 2008 Eleanor Roosevelt award), the executive director of Mexican reproductive rights group GIRE, was instrumental in the fight to legalise abortion.
"It is worth noting that there are very few countries where abortion is banned in law. In almost in all countries, Kenya included, the law permits abortion to save the woman's life," said Dr Orero, a founder of Kisumu Medical and Education Trust, an organisation he started in 1995 to promote health and education.
"A major burden on women is a result of their reproductive function to sustain humanity," he said.
