The Lepers of the 21st Century: Women and Girls Suffering from Obstetric Fistulas
posted by: Ximena R. 15 days ago
"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.
Interested in updates and other ramblings from me? Follow my every move on Twitter - http://twitter.com/XimenaR21.
Read more: africa, pregnancy, kristof, asia, womens rights, Fistula, womens health, maternal health
comments
Pheonix, you're an imbecile...
The who reason Africa is a poor country is because us wealthy nations (such as England and America) won't cut/stop the intrest on the Debt we have bestowed upon them, let alone stopping the debt.
FYI for everyone, no Debts will ever be struck to 0, because they need debt to make it look like there is money in the world.
PLEASE, EVERYONE, EDUCATE YOURSELF:- google: Money As Debt and watch the video.
Are you saying the god-knows-how-many-million tax money that goes into warfare is money better spent?
Onto the main article however, I think it's brilliant that someone is dedicating their lives to helping people, but as I read... well I know that certain areas are backward, and I knew that Female Genital Mutilation (Circumcision, Cutting or Sowing) was still ongoing, but obviously no where near the extent that it is!
If that is a major cause, then surly the people need to be educated, and brought into the 21st century!
It's a crying, shameful thought that in most countries (as in undervelloped both in Education, Science, Religion and Mind) consider women to be secon class citizens and do with them whatever they wish as if they weren't a living sentient being...
Wish I had something to give.
send green star | flag as inappropriate
why is this inappropriate?
Phoenix Q you are a sick excuse for a human! Have you not a mother, sister?? You are sick!
send green star | flag as inappropriate
why is this inappropriate?
Thank you for this article.
send green star | flag as inappropriate
why is this inappropriate?
I have been watching the discussion of this topic for over a week.
The comment(s) made by Phoenix Q are so typical of the negative attitude that religious ZELOTS (non spiritual people with me/materialism/compassionless etc etal) people use to save themselves from the loving truth and gentle acts of kindness that "real" loving people are trying to achieve w/o forcing it down others throats.
I believe they think like a rock and live like a rock and wish they would crawl underneath the rock they came from. That would be an interesting vision to see and for others to learn "what not to do" to become a "ugly", but misunderstood human(?) being.
All the quotations or other types of colourful notations are the hidden reason that others (with loving, reasoning and positive communicative skills) might understand and reason I would not want to add any further discourse to such a beautiful and unconditionial loving forum...
send green star | flag as inappropriate
why is this inappropriate?
Phoenix, its not about wealth etc v poverty -- or socialism v capitalism--it is about a tradition (FGM) founded on a religious dogma (not found in the Q'ran as far as I know) which is the direct cause of all these obstructed labours. Because women are deemed to be weak and might lead men astray (!) if they were left as God intended, young girls are mutilated, as a form of enforced chastity.There just is no room for a baby to get out. This is not about younger women having "smaller pelvises" as someone commented, as during labour, the pelvic bones widen temporarily to allow birth to take place. (Young girls marry or have relations with men , leading to offspring, at a young age in many cultures, but without this fistula problem.)Not only does this mutilation lead to fistula, but also the poor girl's baby is stillborn.
send green star | flag as inappropriate
why is this inappropriate?
I think Mr Phoenix must have been living under a rock!
Talk about "pissing" the tax-payers money away, the government has been doing that for the past 9 years with two illegal wars, hiring thugs to torture people without legal council, hiring more thugs to do the dirty work overseas, then flee for home where no one can bring them to justice, etc. etc.....
I could go on forever, granted, those poor girls in Africa are hard done by and are disposible human beings, so long as they are of the female persuation, then I guess that constitutes rejection of any kind of help, thanks to "MEN" that have put these poor souls in the position they are in......
Shall I go on Mr Pheonix?
send green star | flag as inappropriate
why is this inappropriate?
Phoenix Q, if the problem as stated is exaggerated, then the cost to help the suffering women in Africa would not be so large. You sound like most right-winged Christians that I know. But, seriously, you need to ask your selfish, woman-hating self, what would Jesus do? I'm sure your comments would make your own mother very, very proud.
send green star | flag as inappropriate
why is this inappropriate?
Ian & Bruce. I am the kind of person who would vote NO on this poll.
FORCING American to hand over 1.5 Billion for the repair broken 3rd world vaginas, is just EVIL.
Let Americans CHOOSE their OWN charities.
If WEALTHY nations do NOT have this problem the solution is to CREATE African wealth.
We don't need a bunch of pretentious self righteous pinheads compelling us to piss away our money into ineffective solutions for other people's problems.
12 years and 40 hospitals later Africa will NOT magically be able to afford heath care.
So with NO solution in sight it's again time to FORCE America's employed to cut another check.
So long as Africa chooses Amoral Socialism over Moral Capitalism Africa will remain poor. Lewis can train all he doctors he wants. They will still be unaffordable by the locals.
Furthermore the severity is a flat out LIE.
"Fistula is a tragic problem affecting one out of every 12 women in Africa and approximately three million women worldwide."
REALLY? See 1/12th of Africa's women, [i.e. the population of 973 million divided by 2] would be 40 million in Africa ALONE - NOT 3 million World wide.
If 1/3 the world cases were African - the prevalence would be about one in 486.
send green star | flag as inappropriate
why is this inappropriate?
Ian & Bruce. I am the kind of person who would vote NO on this poll.
FORCING American to hand over 1.5 Billion for the repair broken 3rd world vaginas, is just EVIL.
Let Americans CHOOSE their OWN charities.
If WEALTHY nations do NOT have this problem the solution is to CREATE African wealth.
We don't need a bunch of pretentious self righteous pinheads compelling us to piss away our money into ineffective solutions for other people's problems.
12 years and 40 hospitals later Africa will NOT magically be able to afford heath care.
So with NO solution in sight it's again time to FORCE America's employed to cut another check.
So long as Africa chooses Amoral Socialism over Moral Capitalism Africa will remain poor. Lewis can train all he doctors he wants. They will still be unaffordable by the locals.
Furthermore the severity is a flat out LIE.
"Fistula is a tragic problem affecting one out of every 12 women in Africa and approximately three million women worldwide."
REALLY? See 1/12th of Africa's women, [i.e. the population of 973 million divided by 2] would be 40 million in Africa ALONE - NOT 3 million World wide.
If 1/3 the world cases were African - the prevalence would be about one in 486.
send green star | flag as inappropriate
why is this inappropriate?
The way to stop obstetric fistula is to STOP FGM! It is the CAUSE of fistula. Instead of just repairing the damage, stop the CAUSE of the damage.
If FGM/FGC is irradicated, there will be no need in the future for these fistula repair hospitals.
send green star | flag as inappropriate
why is this inappropriate?
Facebook account:
Disclaimer: The views expressed above are solely those of the author and may not reflect those of Care2, Inc., its employees or advertisers.
1295333