CBM'S Fistula Campaign Aims to Give Women Back Their Dignity

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Mar 21, 2012, 08:00 ET

CAMBRIDGE, England, March 21, 2012 /PRNewswire/ --

On 22^nd March 2012, CBM, the overseas disability charity, will be running a UK wide awareness campaign about their work in the treatment and rehabilitation of women who have/have had Obstetric Fistula. The campaign aims to bring this "woman's issue" to the fore.

CBM, the overseas disability charity, funds many projects that treat obstetric fistula. These projects are located in regions where treatment is most needed.

CBM want to help more women regain their dignity - something that is lost when you no longer have control of your most basic bodily functions - by helping them with the surgery that they so desperately need.

Preventing and managing obstetric fistula contributes to improved maternal health, the fifth Millennium Development Goal. Obstructed labour occurs in 5% of live births and accounts for 8% of all maternal deaths. Most fistulae occur among women living in poverty, in cultures where a woman's status and self-esteem may depend almost entirely on her marriage and ability to bear children.

Obstetric fistula still exists because health care systems fail to provide accessible, quality maternal health care, including skilled care at birth, basic and comprehensive emergency obstetric care, and affordable treatment of fistula. CBM is working to change this and make the treatment accessible to all those who need it, but it needs to raise vital funds for this work.

In Goma, Democratic Republic of Congo, the HEAL AFRICA project conducts VVF surgery which targets women who, as a result of the persistent conflict in the area, have either been victims of sexual violence or have experienced difficulties in childbirth. Women are treated through surgery and also receive counselling at the project. Awareness campaigns and rehabilitation also take place.

CCBRT in Tanzania is building a new maternity hospital, and is working to reduce the prevalence of disability and mitigate the effects of impairments by increased community awareness, strengthening maternal and newborn care and providing comprehensive early intervention services in Tanzania and Kenya.

CCBRT have introduced new technology in the race to increase the number of women that can be treated. M-PESA is an application that allows the transfer of money using their mobile phones. CBM supports CCBRT to pay bus fares up front. This is done by transferring money through agents so they can pay for patient's fares. Since the launch in 2009, the number of women arriving for treatment has increased by 40%. In the first 6 months of 2011, M-PESA was used to pay for the transport of 93 out of 174 patients treated. This innovation gives the opportunity for outreach and community workers to offer even more women the chance to get treatment that they otherwise would not be able to receive due to the cost of transportation.

These are just two projects that CBM works closely with in the battle to reduce the approximate 1.5 million women who currently need treatment. Just £30 can transport a woman to the hospital and £250 can pay for surgery.

CASE STUDY

THE STORY OF ANNA

by Dr. Meryl Nicol, Obstetric Fistula Surgeon, c/o CBM Supported Disability & Rehabilitation Hospital, Tanzania

I want to ask your permission to tell you a story. It's not pretty, but it's a story that needs to be told. It's about a "woman's issue". The sort of thing most men, and even lots of women don't want to hear, but I feel I must talk to you about it because it's destroying the lives of many women in Africa, and turning them into outcasts. It's called obstetric fistula - a condition that causes women to "leak".

Let me start from the beginning. I'm a fistula surgeon from New Zealand who spent many years working in Tanzania. I wasn't always a fistula surgeon, but when I met women whose bodies wouldn't stop "leaking", I knew I had to help. Often these are young women, sometimes barely more than girls, but there are also many who are older and have lived with the condition for many years. Anna was one of these younger women. I want to tell you her story, and I apologise for the graphic details…

I wish for Anna that it were different. Anna is a beautiful girl. If you met her, she'd smile shyly and something in her eyes would make you want to tell her it's going to be alright. Anna began to leak urine and faeces after being in labour for four days with her first baby. She was a small teenager and her baby simply didn't fit. At the local hospital, the doctors kept telling her 'not yet'…So Anna waited, in agony of labour, day after day. On the fourth day, Anna finally gave birth to her baby. It was a little girl, and she was dead. To lose a baby is a tragedy for any woman, but what happened next for Anna made the nightmare continue.

The hospital sent Anna home, even though her legs wouldn't work and she was leaking tissue. When Anna told me about it she said, "The doctors didn't do anything to fix me, but it was myfirst baby and I didn't know." Anna's Aunt, Shangazi, said, "I was very angry when I saw Anna. I saw that she was broken down and things were coming out. I was angry with the doctors at the hospital."

Shangazi had good reason to be upset. Because Anna's baby was stuck for so long, her head crushed Anna's birth canal. The tissue died along with the baby and tore, making a hole - called a fistula - between Anna's birth canal and her bladder and bowel. Worse still, Anna couldn't walk because the pressure of her baby's head had damaged nerves in her legs. "I thought I would never walk again," says Anna. "I was so afraid I would never get better. All I could do was lie in bed, leaking. I thought it might be normal." A young woman, barely more than a teenager, loses her first baby. Her legs get paralysed. Her body is leaking urine. And she doesn't know that her suffering is not okay. It's an outrage she was sent home! It makes me so angry, I want to march right back to the hospital and demand they do something. And that's exactly what Shangazi did. She knew it was wrong, so this 70 year-old woman picked up her paralysed niece and carried her on her back all the way to the local hospital. When I think about love now, that's what I see. A frail elderly woman, made strong by the fierce love she has for her niece. Shangazi waited with Anna in hospital for a week. Anna should have been safe, at last getting the help she needed, but the tragedy got worse. "They didn't do a thing," Shangazi says. "Not eventest her or examine her. Then they sent her away." So what did this love-strong woman do? She carried Anna on her back to another hospital. When Anna arrived, she was exhausted, terrified and, of course, leaking. I thank God that the hospital was our hospital - a CBM funded hospital. I thank God that it wasn't too late to save Anna's legs and heal her body.

For most African women with fistula, the story doesn't end like this. It ends with leaking that won't stop, that smells, and that makes a husband, friends and community disgusted. It ends with the husband leaving, his family turning away in shame. And the woman? The beautiful wife and mother disappears and is replaced by an 'outcast' with a broken heart and a stained dress. These women's voices can't be heard.

Media Toolkit for Story of Anna: http://www.cbmarchive.org/?c=403&k=b0dfbdfb35

(All images can be located in the media toolkit link above). Please use copyright notice under each photo.

CBM Information For Editors

What We Do

CBM, the overseas disability charity, is an international disability and development organisation committed to improving the quality of life of people with disabilities and those at risk from disability. CBM is working in around 70 of the poorest countries of the world reaching more than 25 million people each year.

CBM supports health care for persons with disabilities and prevention of conditions which can lead to disability.

CBM seeks to improve access to health care, education and rehabilitation services for people with visual, hearing, physical, intellectual or psychosocial impairments.

CBM aims to mainstream disabilities into all aspects of development and empower people with disabilities to take an active role in their communities through inclusion in development projects and involvement in community initiatives.

CBM is an official partner with the World Health Organisation in a number of fields including prevention of blindness, hearing impairment and mental health.

CBM MEDIA RELEASE

Contact Person:       Viv Ayas
Organisation:         Mouth PR for CBM UK
Mobile Number: +44(0)7986-606025
Alternative contact:  Clare Rice at CBM UK on +44(0)1223-484700
Email Address:      [email protected] or [email protected]
Web site address:     http://www.cbmuk.org.uk

Media Toolkit for Campaign:
http://www.cbmarchive.org/?c=418&k=b9e97c5ff8
(All images can be located in the media toolkit link above). Please use copyright notice under each photo.