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Dr. Catherine Hamlin has spent nearly 50 years of her career providing free reconstructive surgery to thousands of young African girls and women suffering from fistulas suffered during difficult childbirths. In 1974, Dr. Hamlin and her late husband, Reginald, opened the Addis Ababa Fistula Hospital in Ethiopia. Since then, the Drs. Hamlin and a team of doctors have cured more than 24,000 girls suffering from fistulas, and given them new hope. For her incredible work, Dr. Hamlin was nominated in 1999 for the Nobel Peace Prize. Learn more about how to help her cause.
What is Fistula?
Fistulas are holes that develop in the tissue that separates the vagina from the bladder and/or rectum. They can occur in expectant mothers who have difficulty during labor due to small pelvises, or a poorly positioned fetus. In the United States, obstructive childbirth is often treated by a caesarian section. But in many developing countries, poverty prevents women from getting proper treatment.
Dr. Hamlin explains. "Imagine a little girl...one of the unfortunate five percent of all the women in the world that get into obstructive labor…She doesn't know when she starts her labor, nor do the village women know... They encourage her (to push) day after day after day. After five days she delivers a stillborn baby. The only reason she can deliver is because the baby inside the mother gets smaller when it's dead, and she can push out a dead baby.
"But she wakes up to a worse horror: Finding her bed soaked in urine and sometimes bowel content as well. All of that pushing has created that hole…so everything is coming out, without any control." The odor of the nearly constant drip of urine and waste remains. The young woman is often shunned by her husband, and sent to back home to her parents. Dr. Hamlin says the women are then shunned by their families.
"The father says, 'Let us build a house for her to live in, a little room somewhere on our family plot.' So they put her into a little shed, and there she will stay for the rest of her life, unless she can be cured. She's ruined, a beautiful girl...with no hope of being cured."
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| Help Dr. Catherine Hamlin's Cause: |
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It costs about $450 to help one woman at the Addis Ababa Fistula Hospital. This includes the cost of the surgery to cure the fistula, her hospital care, a new dress and bus fare to return home. |
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Learn more and make a donation! |
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Send a check or call for more information:
The Fistula Foundation
1171 Homestead Road, #265
Santa Clara, CA 95050
Toll free: 866-756-3700 |
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| How Your Donations Have Helped |
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Since Dr. Hamlin appeared on our show, the program has received over 9,000 new donors (6/3/04). Now Dr. Hamlin's work will go on for years to come. |
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| Dr. Hamlin and the Fistula Hospital's Accolades |
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Dr. Hamlin was named one of Australia's "National Treasures." |
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Addis Ababa Fistula Hospital was given the United Nations Population Award and the Dr. Nathan Davis International Award from the AMA. |
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Dr. Hamlin received the award from the Global Health Council for Best Practices in Global Health. |
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