© ReutersMore than two million women around the world, mostly in Africa, suffer from fistula
When Dr Hillary Mabeya visited a condemned home in Eldoret, Kenya in 2009 and said, "This kitchen is going to be an operating room," he raised more than a few eyebrows.
Yet last month, Mabeya performed his thousandth surgical operation in that kitchen, which is now part of the
Gynocare Fistula Centre. Mabeya is the only surgeon at Gynocare, a centre that performs the most fistula surgeries in Kenya, at no cost to the patient.
May 23 marks the second annual
International Day to End Obstetric Fistula. Fistula is a tear in a woman's bladder or rectum that causes her to constantly leak urine or feces. At least
two million women suffer from the condition, with
50,000 to 100,000 new cases occurring each year.
The main causes are prolonged labour, botched Caesarean sections and sexual assault. "I've heard women say to me: 'I wish I could have died in childbirth rather than live with this condition,'" Lindsey Pollaczek told Al Jazeera. Pollaczek works in Kenya as a senior programme manager for
Direct Relief, an international organisation that
supports Gynocare's work.Most women with fistula live in remote areas, and are unaware that they can be healed with surgery. "They can't participate in family life, in social life, they can't go to church, no one will buy their vegetables," said Pollaczek. "Because they smell like urine, they become pariahs in their society, they lose a lot of self-respect, they feel like they've done something wrong to deserve this," she said of the devastating condition.
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