This is one case doctors of two hospitals in Manila will probably be talking about for years to come.
On Wednesday afternoon, a 28-year-old woman was brought in after she performed a Cesarean section on herself without any anesthesia and using just a kitchen knife.
After taking her baby out of her womb, she then tried to close the cut she had made on her abdomen with a needle and thread.
But halfway through the procedure, the woman gave up and remained seated on her bed, beside her eight-month-old baby who unfortunately did not make it.
“They could not even believe it happened,” Police Officer 1 Michael Pavon of the Manila Police District Sta. Mesa station told the Inquirer, referring to doctors of Ospital ng Sampaloc—where she was first treated—and Sta. Ana District Hospital where she was transferred and remains confined.
He said that the bizarre incident was discovered around 1 p.m. the other day after the woman’s aunt arrived at their house on Nagtahan Street in Sta. Mesa, Manila.
“She found her niece seated on her bloodstained bed with her abdomen slashed open and half-stitched [up],” Pavon told the Inquirer, describing the cut on the lower portion of the woman’s abdomen as around five inches long.
Her aunt immediately took her to the nearest hospital where doctors closed the self-inflicted wound.
According to Pavon, although he visited the woman in the hospital, she did not say anything to him because she seemed to be in a state of shock.
On the other hand, her aunt told the police that she did not know why her niece would do such a thing although she said that the woman’s husband had left her last year.
“She also said she never knew her niece was pregnant because the latter had denied it and claimed that she was just putting on weight,” Pavon said.
Her aunt volunteered that although her niece, who is from Isabela province and is currently out of work, does not have any medical degree or nursing experience, the latter used to help out at the provincial health center where doctors performed operations.
Pavon said that the woman may be charged with abortion in the city prosecutor’s office.