About 200 Kenyan women living with obstetric fistula will benefit from free fistula surgeries in a series of medical camps across the country. The Star reports
This comes after the Kenyatta National Hospital, the Safaricom Foundation, the Freedom from Fistula Foundation and Flying Doctors Society of Africa launched a Sh12 million campaign yesterday.
Fistula is an abnormal opening between a woman’s vagina and the bladder. It is estimated that more than two million women live with fistula worldwide with new cases in Kenya estimated to be about 3,000 each year. Further, it is estimated the occurrence stands at three to four women for every 1,000 deliveries.
The condition mostly affects poor rural women and girls across Africa and has been termed by the World Health Organisation “the single most dramatic aftermath of neglected childbirth”.
The free medical camps will focus on two key strategies; prevention by offering training to health workers and free surgical repairs to women with fistula. Physiotherapy to women with urinary incontinence will also be offered.
KNH acting CEO Dr Thomas Mutie said despite the high prevalence rates of fistula in the country, many women are suffering in silence as they are not aware the condition has a cure rate of more than 90 per cent.
He indicated women who experience obstetric fistula suffer constant incontinence, shame, social segregation and health problems.
