The Lepers of the 21st Century: Women and Girls Suffering from Obstetric Fistulas

[sabelmouse]

"Perhaps the most wretched people on this planet are those suffering obstetric fistulas," says Nicholas Kristof in his New York Times Sunday column.

Who are these poor "wretched people?"

Most often they are pregnant young teenagers living in Africa or Asia who develop complications while giving birth. Without fully developed pelvises, these girls suffer agonizing labors resulting in internal injuries that leave them with a hole between their bladder, vagina, and sometimes rectum. The result: the baby is stillborn and the mother is left incontinent - constantly trickling urine and sometimes feces from her vagina.

Because she smells so badly and is unable to control her bladder and bowel movements she is often abandoned by her husband and ostracized by her village. She is left to suffer alone despite a simple surgery that can cure her.

For millions of women and young girls in the poorest countries around the world, fistula is a tragic problem affecting one out of every 12 women in Africa and approximately three million women worldwide. For these women Dr. Lewis Wall, an OB-GYN from Washington University in St. Louis, is their hero.

"There’s no more rewarding experience for a surgeon than a successful fistula repair," says Dr. Wall. "There are a lot of operations you do that solve a problem — I can take out a uterus that has a tumor in it. But this is life-transforming for everybody who gets it done. It’s astonishing. You take a human being who has been in the abyss of despair and — boom! — you have a transformed woman. She has her life back."

Wall has dedicated his life to repairing women with fistulas and in 1995 he founded and is currently president of the Worldwide Fistula Fund which supports international medical education and research on the problem of obstetric fistulas. For years he has campaigned to build a fistula hospital in West Africa – a project that was recently approved by the West African country of Niger.

Modeled on the successful Addis Ababa Fistula Hospital in Ethiopia (watch a powerful video about the hospital here), Wall's hospital will also work to promote maternal health and reduce pregnancy related deaths, as well as advocate for education and micro-finance efforts to empower women. This is just the first of 40 hospitals Wall plans to build in the world's poorest countries to eradicate fistulas worldwide. Over 12 years with a total budget of $1.5-1.6 billion, the project would serve as an American foreign assistance program. According to Kristof, the plan is being circulated in Congress, the State Department, and the White House as well as among religious and aid organizations.

A woman dies every minute in childbirth and for every death there are 20 more women who are injured giving birth. Obstetric fistulas are one of the most horrendous injuries pregnant women endure and they are both preventable and curable, yet millions of women and girl continue to needlessly suffer.

Like Kristof I "can't conceive of a better investment" than Wall's plan to eradicate fistulas globally and in doing so give victims back their lives.

Let's hope the President agrees.

Learn more:

* Watch an inspiring video of Mamitu , an illiterate surgeon working at the Addis Ababa Fistula Hospital in Ethiopia, who has become one of the leading surgeons of fistulas and a trainer of surgeons from all over the world.
* Learn more about Dr. Catherine Hamlin who co-founded the Addis Ababa Fistula Hospital with her late husband Dr. Reginald.



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