Where no consent = death

Men must be made to understand the value of family planning - particularly in societies where men hold the power of decision in the family. Dr. Kotha Pannikar, chairman of the Kedah Family Planning Association (FPA) in Malaysia, illustrated this point in discussion which followed the Consultation of Medical and Communication Fieldworkers conference in Kuala Lumpur in August, with a story about 1 of her own patients. When the girl, who had a rheumatic heart, was 16, Dr. Pannikar advised the parents that she needed cardiac surgery if she were to be a healthy wife and mother. But the parents lived some distance from Dr. Pannikar's surgery and did not heed the advice. The girl was married to a carpenter from a traditional Chinese family, in which "the man is lord and master." Her new home had no piped water, and in additional to normal domestic tasks she had to carry water from a source 1 1/2 miles agay. In the 7th month of her 1st pregnancy, she went into cardiac failure. After the 3rd pregnancy and a 3rd cardiac failure, Dr. Pannikar tried to arrange a sterilization "but we could not get consent - her husband refused to turn up at the hospital." When the girl was admitted to hospital 6 months into her 4th pregnancy, Dr. Pannikar got hold of her patient's mother-in-law. "I told her if she wanted a servant in the house, it was easy to get one. But no servant would look after her grandchildren the way their mother would. I told her if she wanted to save the girl's life she had better speak to her son." During the 4th delivery, the girl went into cardiac arrest and spent 2 weeks in intensive care. The mother-in-law prevailed upon her son to at least consent, and the girl was sterilized before she left hospital. But "it was a very near thing," Dr. Pannikar recalls "and it wouldn't have happened if the husband had felt he was responsible in parenthood." The Kedah FPA makes special efforts to reach men. Dr. Pannikar herself talks to men's organizations like the Lions and Rotary Clubs, and arranges education programs for trade unions and workers on the rubber estates. She thinks women need to be told repeatedly that they have a basic human right to choose whether they want to have a baby, and when. "Women feel," she says, "that their only function is to cook, wash clothes and feed the baby. We need to tell them they have a part to play in the society of today because their children will be the citizens of tomorrow."o