A Windhoek woman says she feels robbed of her womanhood after medical staff at the Ministry of Health and Social Services removed her womb without her consent.

Amalia Festus, a mother, is now suing the ministry for N$3.8 million.

It was in 2017 when the seven-month-pregnant Amalia Festus went to the Katutura State Hospital after experiencing severe pain.

The medical staff, upon examining her, decided on an emergency casarean, and a baby girl was delivered.

Amalia's joy of motherhood was short-lived; she narrates that immediately after the operation, she experienced pain like never before.

She claims that despite her complaining of pain and inability to relieve herself, she was discharged.

"I was in the certain room on that same day, the 16th of November, December. I got sick, whereby I couldn't even walk up. Then the whole night I was vomiting. Then the next morning, on the 17th, I saw a cleaner who passed by the room, and I called her to come and help me. I told her to call me a doctor or a nurse to come help me. Then she managed to get a nurse for me. Then I told the nurse to come take me to casualty or to help me with any medicine. Then she said I'm no longer in their care since my card was written discharged. She told me to call my family member to come take me to casualty as a new patient."

After a harrowing five-hour wait, Amalia was readmitted as a new patient, but this time to the Windhoek Central Hospital.

The medical records are logged that she had a miscarriage, but just the previous day, an emergency operation on her produced a baby girl who was seemingly recovering at the Katutura State Hospital.

By this time her pain was unbearable.

"What I can remember is that I was on five days of antibiotics. But I was very sick. I couldn't sleep the whole day, the whole night. The sickness got worse until the 21st, whereby the doctor at Central decided to re-operate me to check what was wrong with me. They operated on me on the 21st of December. They found my womb was totally rotten. I asked the doctor what was wrong with my womb. They said it was infected. I wrote a letter to Katutura Hospital in 2018. Then they answered me that they couldn't get my hospital file. That was 2018."

Amalia is now left with questions about her so-labelled rotten womb, her discharge while she was in pain, how the contradictory records of miscarriage came about and the lack of information around her health risks should the womb not have been removed.

With all these questions that remained unanswered, she turned to the courts to seek relief in the form of financial compensation.

The dream of the mother of three ever bearing more children is gone.

"I want another baby. There's nowhere I can get a baby. This happened at my young age, when I was 26 years old. And it really affected me, even in communities. I have three different people that called me who are no longer conceiving. How will I ever get a man if I cannot have a baby?"

The missing files of Amalia were found and presented by the representatives of the Health Ministry during Amalia's court-connected mediation yesterday.

Her matter is postponed to Thursday, and parties hope that a solution will be reached, avoiding the matter proceeding to trial.