ELIZABETH

Everyone was rushing over to a particular bed. I was doing my nursing training and was on shift at the biggest maternity hospital in Sierra Leone. A young lady had just been carried in and placed on this bed – she can’t have been more than 16 years old.

She was bleeding, her skin so discoloured it was clear she’d lost a lot of blood already. The staff tried to help but she died soon after. She’d tried to give herself an abortion, someone told me.

I helped take her body down to the mortuary. I paused for a moment, unable to stop my tears. An abortion, by herself, with no medical help?

This was the first time I realised that people are dying from this.

I’d like to say this isn’t still happening. But our law in Sierra Leone continues to restrict safe abortion services, so women often find themselves faced with no choice but to take unsafe measures.

Not long ago, my team drove into a rural village to provide contraception, and I had a similar experience, with people gathered around a women shouting. Community members saw our vehicle and rushed over to us – come help! 

I went to the woman laying lifeless on the ground, who had taken a cassava stick and shoved it inside her. Complete desperation is the only thing that could move someone to do such a thing. Her future being robbed of her, and now her life. 

I know the law has been under scrutiny for a long time, and I watched on with hope recently as a bill was debated that would increase women’s access to reproductive healthcare. But it has been paused and pushed back. While MPs fight over this, do they realise people are dying?

I work for MSI’s team in Port Loko, providing contraception and post-abortion care for people needing life-saving medical intervention after unsafe abortions. It’s not easy – most of the areas we serve are very poor and right now it’s rainy season which makes it even harder to travel into some communities.

But I love this work. I teach girls how to take care of themselves, and how they can avoid pregnancy so they can finish their education. A young woman came to me recently and asked if I remembered her. She said two years ago I had given her a contraceptive, and now she’s at university! I am really helping people.

For every woman who loses her life, there are many more whose lives continue on because of our work.

We’re doing the best we can – but the environment needs to support us. If you ask me, safe abortion must be allowed. End the constraints, the barriers.

If we do that, we can save the lives of women in Sierra Leone.