Amazing win for women’s/patients’ rights in Namibia - the high court agreed with the case that three women were sterilised without their informed consent.

[The judge] said the three women in the case, who were sterilised in Namibian state hospitals between 2005 and 2007, had dealt with health staff who could not speak their language, Oshiwambo. They were handed consent forms containing unintelligible acronyms. The forms were produced while the women were in labour, minutes before they were wheeled into the operating theatre. In at least one case, the woman had been in labour for four days and was made to believe she would only be eligible for her caesarean if she signed the form. In all three cases, the women only realised the meaning of “BTL” – bilateral tubal ligation – after the surgery.

Win!