A Saskatoon woman is pleased with the Saskatoon Health Region’s decision to launch a review into concerns raised by indigenous women who said they felt coerced into having tubal ligations after giving birth.
Melika Popp says she’s experienced side effects and her self-concept as a woman has changed after being sterilized against her will in 2008. A single mother at the time, Popp says she was pressured into giving consent to have tubal ligation by medical staff at Royal University Hospital while she was in labour with her second child.
“Fear, anxiety, pain. I mean, I'm in labour, certainly not a time to ask a woman, approach a woman, about such a drastic life-altering decision,” Popp told CTV News.
She had the procedure shortly after giving birth by caesarian section and said it was very difficult for her to accept she’s not able to have any more children.
Popp says coerced sterilization of indigenous women is a human rights violation and an act of genocide. She’s one of four women who complained that they felt pressured by medical staff and others with the Saskatoon Health Region to undergo the procedure, which involves clamping or severing a woman's fallopian tubes and is considered a permanent method of birth control.
"They expressed to us that they felt pressure from a number of different sources," said Leanne Smith, the health region's director of maternal services.
Smith said that included a questionnaire which asked about tubal ligation at the time of admission.
"That was not the best time to ask that question," she said. "And then I think they felt it from physicians and other health-care providers as they went through their experience."
The health region previously apologized to two aboriginal women who had the surgery after giving birth at Royal University Hospital.
The review will be led by Yvonne Boyer, a lawyer and Canada Research Chair in Aboriginal Health and Wellness at Brandon University, and Dr. Judy Bartlett, a physician and former professor with the College of Medicine at the University of Manitoba.
Jackie Mann, the health region's vice-president of integrated health services, said they will be paid by the region, but it will be an independent process.
"They will conduct the interviews with the clients who are willing to have those interviews and with our staff, confidentially and independently, and then they will provide us with their recommendations," said Mann.
Mann could not say whether the review and subsequent recommendations would address compensation.
"This external review, really the purpose is to truly hear the stories of the women who come forward, to review what's currently occurring in our processes, to look at the changes we've made and for those reviewers to weigh in on those changes based on practices across the country and information that they will gather," she said.
The review is to begin later this month and is expected to wrap up this spring.
Smith said the Saskatoon Health Region has since changed its policy to require written documentation showing a woman had given consent for a tubal ligation before entering the hospital to give birth.
The new policy is designed to ensure consent is not given when a woman is in a vulnerable position, she said.
"When a person is in labour, there's often pain, anxiety that makes giving free and informed consent difficult."
Popp says she feels confident in the doctors leading the review and hopes it validates concerns the move is a human rights violation and act of genocide.
“Hopefully women like me who have suffered can finally have restorative justice, peace, closure. My objective in all of this is to create a better world,” Popp said.
She’s sharing her story so it doesn’t happen to anyone else and hopes to inspires others to come forward if it has.
The health region says it believes there are more women who were pressured into receiving tubal ligation and are asking them contact its First Nations and Metis Health Service by confidentially calling 306-655-0546 or 306-655-0176.
--- with files from The Canadian Press's Jennifer Graham
