Our Programmes - Fistula Repairs

Fistula Repairs for Indigent Women and Girls

The figures released by the world health Organization are staggering and even though Fistula was eliminated in developed countries a century ago, It still affects two million women. (Source of data, WHO, 2019).

Fistula in Africa:

Today, at least one million women in Africa needlessly suffer from untreated fistula.

Nigeria, an African country has been reported to have one of the highest rates of maternal mortality in the world.

According to the latest UN global estimates, 303,000 women die every year in childbirth, or because of complications arising from pregnancy. This equates to about 830 women dying each day- roughly one every two minutes.

Each year, 50,000 to 100,000 new women experience obstetric fistula, which consists of an abnormal opening between a woman’s genital tract and her urinary tract or rectum.

How Fistula Occurs:

An Obstetric fistula occurs when a mother has a prolonged, obstructed labor, but does not have access to emergency medical care such as a C- section.

The result of prolonged and obstructed labor, often leads to fetal and maternal death.

It is a major injury to girls and women who survive excessively long labour during childbirth, but may suffer stillbirths and subsequently develop incontinence and a vulnerability to infections.’

"According to World Health Organization, obstructed labor is responsible for up to 6 percent of all maternal death (WHO, 2019)"

Our Approach

Fistula Repairs

Our main goal is to help these women by providing free surgeries to heal their fistula. We work closely with dedicated doctors and local partners to provide high quality life transforming care to many women as possible.

We support treatment at difference fistula centers across the country.

How We Do It:

THE POOL EFFORT TECHNIQUE

Due to the high demand for fistula surgeons and their low supply in relation to the high number of women suffering from Obstetric Fistula, we came up with a method that would help us achieve more within a short period of time tagged – “The Pool Effort”.

In this method, we enlisted the help of local fistula clinics that helped in providing information about women suffering from Obstetric Fistula and the required facilities for carrying out these surgeries.

Patients with fistula can undergo a surgery to repair the hole in their bladder or rectum. The treatment cures up to 90% of obstetric fistula patients. With support from donors like you, we help repair more women, giving them a chance to live normal lives.

Fistula is easily preventable. But it still happens every day in underdeveloped countries across the world.

An estimated 2 million women live with fistula, predominantly in Sub-Saharan Africa and parts of Asia and the Arab world.

While fistula is obviously a medical condition, there are numerous socio-cultural factors that both dispose women to the condition and which also result from a life with obstetric fistula.

Firstly, fistula primarily affects young, poor women with little or no access to maternal health services

Medical consequences: incontinence, infection, and possible infertility

Social consequences: isolation, abandonment, stigma, vulnerability

We aim to bring succor to these women by providing for them free repair surgeries by taking the following steps:

Call to women suffering from Obstetric Fistula within the region through various traditional and non-traditional means of information dissemination
Assessment of the women who indicate interest
Medical tests, consultations and interviews with the women

Appointments with doctors
Provision of transportation, feeding and accommodation for the women
Free surgeries performed
Follow up assessment of the surgery
Close observation of the women after surgeries
Discharge of women who are certified to be in good health by the surgeons and doctors
Provision of transportation and micro-finance loans for the women to integrate them back into the society