Catherine Hamlin, the gynaecologist who opened the well known Fistula Hospital in Addis Ababa in 1974 and has so far, free of charge, treated over 30.000 women for their Fistulas, wrote in her book, The Hospital by the River, that she remembered a young Fistula woman came to her with a sealed letter dressed in rags and weak from hunger. The letter was so worn and grubby you could hardly read it. To her surprise it had been dated 7 years ago." Why has it taken you seven years to get here?" she asked. And the young woman replied:" I have been begging at the bus station to get enough for the fare to the hospital".
Seven years - no human being should ever succumb to such suffering!
At the hospital in Arba Minch they now try to get information out to women with Fistula living in rural areas that they will get both the transportation and the Fistula operation done for free so please help, give a donation towards the CD and also please forward this presentation/link to all your family and friends and ask them to forward it again to people they know. This way we together can reach as many as possible and the women of Ethiopia can have the help they so desperately need.
The women of Ethiopia seriously lack medical care, especially in obstetrics as there is only a handful of hospitals and only one specialist in gynaecology and obstetrics per 1.8 million people. 90% of its 80 million people live in rural areas making availability of health services extremely difficult. Many women die during delivery (720 out of 100,000 live births) but higher still is the number of women who survive childbirth only to sustain serious injuries and permanent damage to their health, such as obstetric fistulas. 100,000 women suffer untreated fistulas in Ethiopia and another 9-10.000 develop fistulas every year.
Country with a well run health care system hardly have this problem, since emergency Caesarean section or other emergency measures are performed if there are any dangers to the mother or child during labour and delivery. But in Ethiopias remote regions, women dont have anyone to help them if there are complications during birth.
My previous CD Singing for the Women of Ethiopia (December 2007) has been distributed to many parts of the world through family and friends and has collected (so far) over £25,000.
These donations have supported education of midwives and health officers in South-west Ethiopia. Specifically, 200midwives and 10 health officers have finished their training and have started working at small hospitals/health centres out in rural areas performing comprehensive emergency obstetric care, including caesarean sections, preventing Fistulas and saving the lives of mothers and their babies.
The training of midwives and health officers is a continuous project which is now supported financially by NORAD (Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation). However, the newly opened fistula department at the Hospital of Arba Minch (South-west Ethiopia) does not receive support from any non-profit organisations. The contributions from the new CD will therefore support this department - support which is endlessly important.
The fistula department in Arba Minch has 20 beds and its aim is to operate specifically on women with more simple fistulas. Women who present with more complex cases will have to be transferred to the well known Fistula Hospital in the capital Addis Ababa where some 1,200 women are operated on each year. This hospital also help to train doctors, midwifes and nurses working at the Fistula department in Arba Minch.
I have visited Ethiopia twice since November 2006 and cannot wait to hopefully be back in November 2010 to hand over the contributions collected from this CD.
All collections will be handed over directly to NLM (The Norwegian Lutheran Mission) lead by Dr. Bernt Lindtjoern who work in close relationship with the Government in South-west Ethiopia and nothing is lost in administration fees.
E-mail me on anne@bergepedersen.com to order the CD. Donations from £10 per CD would be appreciated.
On behalf of the women of Ethiopia, thank you so much for your wonderful help.
A good hug to each one of you from
Midwife Anne Berge Pedersen
www.ethiopiafund.org (here you can listen to songs from both CDs and read more about the project)
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Click Language, Medicine, Food and Culture of the San Bushmenby rndomn823,394 views
Thank you so much for posting this heart breaking video. People like you are making a huge difference in this world. God Bless.
Dimblal 1 year ago