Wubete

Last night, completely by chance, I happened upon the beginning of a show on PBS titled "A Walk to Beautiful." I thought it looked interesting and the titled grabbed me so I decided to stay put and watch it until the end. I'm glad I did. The program discussed the problem of women having a problematic child birth, often ending in a still-birth, and developing an obstetric fistula. As a result, they become incontinent. Thus unable to control their discharge of urine or feces (or sometimes both), they (the program was an examination of the problem of poor women in Ethiopia) become outcasts because of the unsanitary problem that is with them always.

All the featured women captured me but one tiny youngster particular grabbed my heart -- Wubete:

I hate to see a female cry; it does something really weird to me. Wubete told her story, or the narrator did -- I can't really recall, but the upshot was she was on her third trip to the hospital and had not been cured of the problem. She cried and was resolute that she would not return to her village. She had no one there, she said.

I was now fully invested in the show and hooked. I was going to be supremely angry if they didn't help this girl even though I know that not everyone with an obstetric fistula can be completely "cured." The girl said she would beg on the streets before going back to that village.

"No, no, no, no, no," I was now thinking, "don't let the girl have to beg for a living."

They couldn't completely cure her, they did provide her with a tube of some sort that allowed her to control the time and place of her urinary discharge and that seemed to be good enough to Wubete so it was good enough for me. Eventually, she was placed in a home caring for children orphaned when their mothers died from AIDS. Wubete now had a place, a purpose, and some children to care for.

Well done, Dr. Catherine Hamlin. Well done. Associated with a Santa Clara, California-based organization, here is how

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Having a baby can be one of the most joyous events in a woman's life. Yet for the millions of young women in the developing world who develop severe injuries called fistulas from obstructed labor, it's the beginning of a living nightmare, one that can last the rest of their lives. Since 1974, when she and her late husband Reginald established the Addis Ababa Fistula Hospital in Ethiopia, Dr. Catherine Hamlin has given her all to curing fistulas and restoring life to these women, many of whom are just teenagers. In this interview, conducted at the fistula hospital by "A Walk to Beautiful" codirectors Mary Olive Smith and Amy Bucher, Hamlin talks about just how heartbreaking this tragedy can be for poor women—and how miraculous the cure.

Note: To learn more about the Addis Ababa Fistula Hospital and the U.S.-based Fistula Foundation, see www.fistulafoundation.org.

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For an interesting additional bit of information on Dr. Hamlin, read this citation she received from her alma mater, the University of Sydney.

Comments

[Pat]

J.B.

You may be interested in the Pan-African Academy of Christian Surgeons and Medical Education International.

http://www.cmda.org/AM/Template.cfm?Section=PAACS&Template=/CM/HTMLDisplay.cfm&ContentID=13201

http://www.cmda.org/AM/Template.cfm?Section=Medical_Education_International&Template=/CM/HTMLDisplay.cfm&ContentID=14331