The [b]KwaZulu-Natal Health Department[/b] has stirred a hornet’s nest by insisting on contraceptives for 12 female pharmacology students who have for India on scholarships provided by the province, reports [s]Business Day[/s]. Their studies are funded by the SA government, the SA division of Indian drug maker [b]Cipla, Rand Merchant Bank[/b] and private sponsors. They are to be injected with the contraceptive Implanon. Lou Haysom of Agenda Feminist Media said that it was ethically wrong to sterilise women only when the same treatment was not extended to their male counterparts. But [b]KZN Health MEC[/b] Dr Sibongiseni Dhlomo is quoted in the [s]Sunday Times[/s] as saying that he did not insist on the contraceptive implants. ‘I wasn’t forcing them into anything. I just appealed to them to delay motherhood’.
[link url=http://www.bdlive.co.za/national/health/2014/07/31/kwazulu-natal-health-department-under-fire-for-insisting-on-birth-control]Full Business Day report[/link]
[link url=http://www.timeslive.co.za/sundaytimes]Full Sunday Times report[/link]