Addis Ababa Fistula Hospital

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The Addis Ababa Fistula Hospital

The Addis Ababa Fistula Hospital is a hospital in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa , which has been in existence since 1974. It specializes exclusively in the treatment of birth-related fistulas in women and has focused on this task since its inception as the world's leading hospital. It is also an important training center for practical fistula surgery. It was founded by the Australian couple Reginald Hamlin and Catherine Hamlin , who had been working in Ethiopia since the late 1950s and who have received several awards for their longstanding work in favor of women with fistulas. The hospital is maintained by the Australian registered non-profit organization Hamlin Fistula Welfare and Research and the Ethiopia-based Hamlin Fistula Welfare and Research Trust .

development

In the Addis Ababa Fistula Hospital, where all patients are treated free of charge, around 40,000 women have successfully operated on since it was founded in 1974. The hospital's success rate is around 93 percent. In the 1990s, the clinic was expanded and modernized, and since then it has also had a laboratory for pathological examinations, an X-ray department and a physiotherapy center. Since 1998, mobile teams have also been in action at local hospitals in remote regions of the country. With the establishment of a total of five “Hamlin Fistula Centers” in various regional clinics between 2005 and 2010, the number of operations has increased significantly. In addition, independent departments and hospitals dedicated to fistula surgery have emerged in other countries, particularly in Africa.

From the year 2000, a rehabilitation and reintegration center was also built under the name “Desta Mender”, in which women who cannot fully cure can receive appropriate medical care. In addition, they are trained in various professions and reintegrated in the vicinity of the Addis Abeba Fistula Hospital and its external centers. In the field of training, the hospital cooperates with the University of Addis Ababa . Since 2007, around 20 to 25 young women have been trained as midwives every year at the Hamlin College of Midwifery. They come from rural areas, receive free training and after completing their training undertake to work for six years in health centers near the Hamlin Fistula Centers. In the medium term, obstetric care is to be improved.

Fistulas

Fistulas such as vesicovaginal and rectovaginal fistulas can arise as a result of inadequately cared for birth complications or miscarriages or after rape . Complications are frequent in the lengthy labor processes, which in developing countries often take place without medical assistance. Globally, around 5% of all pregnant women have complications during childbirth. While emergency medical care is guaranteed in industrialized countries (and a caesarean section is performed), there are few hospitals and few doctors in developing countries. Transport to the nearest hospital is often not possible because it is usually far too far away. There are no roads or transportation. The complications of childbirth can lead to the death of both mother and child. The accumulation of obstetric fistulas is also due to the small, inflexible pelvis of the malnourished, stunted, mostly adolescent mother and the ignorance of the helping female family members about the course of labor and its complications. The prolonged stretching of the vagina or obstacles to childbirth can lead to tears in the skin, mucous membrane and muscle structures between the vagina and intestine, which sometimes only heal with defects of different sizes. These defects, which can also epithelialize as they progress , form wide or tubular connections between the vagina and mostly the intestine or the urinary bladder. Due to chronic inflammation, these connections can form complex ducts, the complete removal of which places high demands on surgery. If there is no qualified treatment, there is uncontrolled leakage of urine or excrement from the vagina. The women affected are viewed as polluted and, as a result, often abandoned by their partners, avoided from their surroundings and excluded from their social community.

Awards

  • 2004 United Nations Population Award, United Nations Population Fund
  • 2004 Nathan Davis Award for Outstanding World Health Initiative, American Medical Association
  • 2007 Best Humanitarian and Social Service in Ethiopia - the President of Ethiopia, Girma Wolde-Giorgis

literature

  • Catherine Hamlin: The Hospital by the River: A Story of Hope. Monarch Books, Oxford 2004, ISBN 1-85-424673-9 .
  • John Little: Catherine's Gift. The Extraordinary World of Dr Catherine Hamlin. Macmillan Australia, Sydney 2008, ISBN 1-40-503882-9 .
  • Catherine Hamlin: The River Hospital. BoD, Bruchsal 2013, ISBN 978-3732244683

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The Fistula Foundation: Where we help (last accessed May 13, 2012)

Coordinates: 9 ° 1 '30.4 "  N , 38 ° 45' 15.8"  E