My wife came back from a women's coffee morning and said a lady there was giving a lecture about Ethiopia and she said that we should go. We went to the golf club and there were quite a few people in attendance. I thought I was going to see a tourist guide.
A nurse got up and showed some pictures of mainly African people while another lady sang John Lennon's Imagine.
The nurse then explained who the different people were. They were either patients or nurses at the Hamlin Fistula Hospital in Ethiopia. I had never heard of fistula.
Fistula occurs in Ethiopia as it is the "tradition" for men to take very young brides, often as young as eleven or twelve. The girl then becomes pregnant and her body is not ready for childbirth. She can then often go into labour for days on end and the baby is usually stillborn. This is obviously distressing and very sad to hear.
The fistula is the hole that is created in the bowel wall by the strain caused by the childbirth. The woman then has a leak in her bowel/urine system and basically urine and faeces just leak from her. The woman is often just shunned by everyone and lives alone separated from everyone. Without treatment, the woman spends the rest of her life like this, with this distressing condition and being outside of society.
The fistula is fairly simply treated by a surgical procedure that the Hamlin Hospital carries out. The womans life becomes transformed by this.
At the end of the lecture the nurse showed the photos again and the other woman sang Imagine again too. There was not a dry eye in the house.
The hospital relies on donations, so please give generously (see link at the top of this post).
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