Campaign to End Fistula

I read an eye-opening article in the New York Times today. You need a (free) login to access it online, but here's the link: Nightmare for African Women: Birthing Injury and Little Help.

Here are some excerpts:

"What brings the girls to Dr. Waaldijk - and him to Nigeria - is the obstetric nightmare of fistulas, unknown in the West for nearly a century. Mostly teenagers who tried to deliver their first child at home, the girls failed at labor. Their babies were lodged in their narrow birth canals, and the resulting pressure cut off blood to vital tissues and ripped holes in their bowels or urethras, or both."
[ . . . ]
"In Nigeria alone, perhaps 400,000 to 800,000 women suffer untreated fistulas, says the United Nations."
[ . . . ]
"Obstetric fistulas are easily prevented by Caesarean sections. But in sub-Saharan Africa - excluding the region's richest nation, South Africa - the average doctor serves 6,666 patients and villages are often linked by little more than dirt paths."
[ . . . ]
"Dr. Waaldijk remembers one patient well. She managed to push out only her baby's head before collapsing from exhaustion in her hut, he said. Her brother carried her, balanced on a donkey, to a road, where a bus driver demanded 10 times the usual fare to take her to a hospital. She half-stood, half-sat for the trip, her dead baby's head between her legs, her urethra ripped open."
[ . . . ]
"Were it widely available, the United Nations agency states, a $300 operation could repair most fistulas. But Mozambique, with 17 million people, has just three surgeons who consistently perform those operations. Niger, population 11 million, has but six, the organization reported in 2002."
[ . . . ]
"More than a third of his patients are 15 or younger; another 30 percent are between 15 and 20. His records indicate that most were married at 11 or 12, before menstruation. Nearly all bring with them tales of hardship, suffering and rejection."
[ . . . ]
"Safiya, 23, was in the post-op ward after living for a year in the hut of a traditional healer who tried to cure her by stuffing potions into her vagina. Daso, 23, said she had leaked urine and feces for five years. Her husband divorced her."

It seems there are so many problems in this world. God is defunct. It's up to you and me to make the world a better place. What a cliche, eh?

The online article was accompanied by a link to the United Nations Population Fund (UNPFA), which has organized a Campaign to End Fistula. Please donate if you can.