Limpho Sello
A NURSING assistant has been illegally running two clinics in Maseru and offering various medical services including abortion for the past four years, the Lesotho Times has established.
Investigations by this publication have shown that the nursing assistant, David Matšela, runs two clinics, namely, Tšepong Clinic in Ha-Leqele and Khorong Clinic in Thaba-Bosiu. By his own admission, the Tšepong Clinic has been operating for the past 29 years. He however, denies offering abortion services.
Abortion is illegal in Lesotho but this has not stopped some health professionals from illegally offering the service. The illegal nature of the operations has resulted in serious complications and even deaths for some expectant mothers who terminate their pregnancies at backyard clinics. Some of those who have experienced complications as a result of the pregnancies subsequently check in as in-patients at the country’s major hospitals.
Back in 2018, then Health Minister Nkaku Kabi complained that Queen ‘Mamohato Memorial Hospital (QMMH), the country’s largest referral hospital, was overcrowded with a huge number of the patients having been admitted for complications resulting from illegal abortions.
Despite the serious complications and even deaths resulting from the illegal abortions, unscrupulous health workers like Mr Matšela continue to offer such services.
Mr Matšela offers these and other services despite that he is not qualified to offer them or even authorized to set up a clinic on his own. His illegal activities have been condemned by the Lesotho Nursing Council (LNC) Registrar, Mamohapi Poka, who said Mr Matšela had persisted despite being summoned to several disciplinary hearings and subsequently being struck off their register.
Ms Poka said Mr Matšela has a pending case in the magistrates’ court in connection with his illegal activities.
Despite all this, the Lesotho Times visited Tšepong Clinic and found out that Mr Matšela is still offering various services including the illegal abortions.
The clinic is housed in two rented rooms- one used as a waiting and pharmacy room and the other as a consultation room.
Its walls are plastered with posters warning of the dangers of the Coronavirus (Covid-19) disease. It also has posters advertising the services offered at the clinic including dental services.
Abortion services are not advertised owing to the fact that they are illegal in Lesotho. Mr Matšela even denied offering such services, telling this publication that someone was out to tarnish his image and destroy his business which has been running for 29 years.
However, this reporter established that abortion services were indeed offered at the clinic for a fee of M700. This after speaking to one of the workers and posing as an expecting mother who wanted to terminate her pregnancy.
When this reporter visited the clinic, she found 10 patients waiting to be attended to.
Despite this reporter demanding to speak to a doctor, a worker at the clinic insisted on attending to her.
Even when he was told that this reporter wanted abortion services, she was reassured that it was not necessary for her to be attended by a doctor as the worker could offer the service at the clinic for M700.
The fee is inclusive of womb cleaning,” the male worker explained.
“You will have to come back tomorrow morning for the (abortion) procedure because the medicines we use to terminate pregnancies are not here. We have to collect them from somewhere. We use pills or an injection for the operation.
“You will not experience any harm. The procedure will take a short while and it is not painful. You will be able to walk freely afterwards and even return to work. Terminating your pregnancy is very easy since you say you are in your first weeks. I would have been a little worried if you were five or more months pregnant. Only then would you experience pain but even then, the pain doesn’t last long,” said the worker who refused to identify himself.
The Ministry of Health’s Acting Director General, Dr ‘Malitaba Litaba, said she would only comment on the issue after receiving a report from a team she had asked to probe the matter.
On her part, Ms Poka accused Mr Matšela of running illegal clinics “because the educational and professional qualifications of a nursing assistant do not allow them to open clinics or perform duties of a doctor or nurse”.
She said a nursing assistant was not allowed to work without being supervised by a registered nurse and therefore could not open and run a private clinic on his own.
She said Mr Matšela had chosen to continue contravening the regulations “despite countless disciplinary hearings and a pending court case against him”.
“We have called him to several disciplinary hearings over the years and there is also a court case pending at the magistrates’ court,” Ms Poka said.
She said according to the two complaints presented to the LNC in 2013 and 2017, Mr Matšela mispresented himself as a doctor to one of his patients. He allegedly prescribed an alcoholic brandy beverage to one patient and misdiagnosed another leading to that’s patient’s death at his clinic.
“Some of the issues we had taken him to task for were that he opened a clinic when his only qualification is that of a nursing assistant. He also works with unqualified staff.
“He performs surgical procedures such as dental services and womb cleaning which are supposed to be performed by a doctor in an operating theatre. To top it all, Mr Matšela’s clinics offer illegal abortion services,” Ms Poka said.
She said the case against him was registered under case number RCI 36/02/17.
She said the case has been repeatedly postponed since 2017 and the last postponement was in February 2020 after Mr Matšela failed to show up in court.
“The lives of people need to be prioritised in this case. People are in danger, most of them are not aware that those clinics are not licensed and that the procedures done to them can actually kill them,” she said.
Mr Matšela is also the president of the Qiloane Nursing Assistants Association which is affiliated to the Coalition of Health professionals in Lesotho.
This week, the chairperson of the Coalition of Health Professionals Association, Gertrude Mothibe, said they summoned Mr Matšela but he refused to explain his side of the story saying the case was already in the courts.
On his part, Mr Matšela told this publication that there was nothing amiss about his operations as they were above board.
He said he had been running his businesses for the past 29 years and he could not understand why he was now being asked to account for his activities.
He alleged that there was someone who wanted to bring down his business by badmouthing him. He however, failed to explain why he was running a clinic despite lacking the requisite qualifications. He also failed to explain why he was offering surgical procedures that ought to be offered by doctors.
“There is someone who wants to drag my name in the mud. I have been running my Ha-Leqele clinic for 29 years. I know the person who is bad-mouthing me because I once rented the home of that same person. So, I know what they want from me,” Mr Matšela said.
He denied offering abortion services even when told of this reporter’s experience of being offered the services for a fee of M700 at his clinic.
Mr Matšela produced a document which purported to grant him permission to operate the clinic. However, the document, purportedly issued by the health ministry’s registry office, has a 2005 date stamp.
Mr Matšela also produced a 24 February 2020 bank deposit slip which appeared to show that he had paid his annual subscription to the LNC. He said he had been unable to submit the deposit slip at the LNC offices due to the lockdown which was imposed by the government to fight Covid-19.
The lockdown was only in place from 30 March to 5 May 2020 meaning that he has had ample time to submit the deposit slip if he was indeed still registered with the LCN as he claims to be.
However, Ms Poka said he had been “de-registered and removed from the records of the LNC”.
She said the ministry of health had denied issuing Mr Matšela a licence to run clinics and offer medical services.
