20 Mombasa women to get free fistula surgery

MOMBASA: Women suffering from obstetric fistula at the Coast will benefit from free reconstructive surgery at the Coast General Hospital (CGH).

Twenty women will benefit from the initial surgeries, which began yesterday. The operations are sponsored by the African Medical Research Foundation (Amref), United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and Mombasa County.

Mombasa County Medical Health Officer Khadija Shikelly said the CGH would waive all charges, adding that the patients would be admitted for two weeks after surgery.

Mombasa Woman Representative Mishi Mboko, said there was a lot of stigma associated with fistula, which has made women shy away from seeking assistance.

Doctors and specialists will camp at the referral hospital for one week where they want to conduct about 20 fistula repair surgeries.

According to the Fistula Foundation, an estimated two million women in Asia and sub-Saharan Africa live with untreated obstetric fistula.

According to CGH Chief Gynaecologist Faiza Nassir, three surgeons will be in the hospital to help attend to patients.

She said one surgeon is from Tanzania and the other two are local surgeons.

“This camp targets all patients across the region and that is why we are urging all women, especially those in rural areas, to come and get the services,” Dr Faiza said.

PENDING CASES

She, however, noted that there was need for more specialised expertise, adding that there was only one surgeon in the region who deals with fistula cases.

She said there was a need to ensure that one case of fistula is repaired every week.

“We should not wait for camps. We should make sure that every week we do a fistula repair operation,” she said.

Faiza also expressed concerns at how training of those surgeons was done at the national level only, adding that the same should also be done in the counties so that there could be more specialists.

“We did not have expertise so we relied heavily on Amref and UNFPA, and that is why we need more doctors and nurses to be trained,” she said.

She said that they had 12 pending cases but now that the experts were around, they would conduct more surgeries.

“I’d like to ask the county government to help in the training of nurses so that they can help offer services to these patients,” said Ms Mboko.

“Our level-four hospitals should have enough facilities and personnel that can attend to any complications during child birth other than referring them to level-five hospitals when it is too late and we either lose the child or the mother suffers obstetric fistula,” she added.