Addis Ababa Fistula Hospital
The Addis Ababa Fistula Hospital is an existing hospital since 1974 in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa, which is solely focused on the treatment of obstetric fistula in women and focused since its emergence as the world's leading hospital for this task. It is also considered a major training center for the practical fistula surgery. It was founded by Australian doctors couple Reginald Hamlin and Catherine Hamlin, who had been active since the late 1950s in Ethiopia and have won several awards for her many years of service in favor of women with fistulas. Is maintaining the hospital by the non-profit organization registered in Australia Hamlin Fistula Welfare and Research Foundation and based in Ethiopia Hamlin Fistula Welfare and Research Trust.
Development
In the Addis Ababa Fistula Hospital, where all patients are treated free of charge, around 24,000 women have been successfully operated for the first 30 years of its existence. The success rate of the hospital is around 93 percent. In the 1990s, made an expansion and modernization of the hospital, which also has a laboratory for pathological investigations, X-ray department and a physiotherapy center ever since. Since 1998, also mobile teams in action, working in remote regions of the country at local hospitals. With the establishment of several " Hamlin Fistula Centres " in various regional hospitals in the years 2005/2006, the number of operations has greatly increased. In addition, have emerged in recent years in other countries, particularly in Africa, independent departments and hospitals that are dedicated to fistula surgery. From 2000, also a village under the name " Desta Mender " built in which women in whom no cure is possible, a life is possible in community and with adequate medical care. In the area of training, the hospital is cooperating with the University of Addis Ababa.
Fistulas
Fistulas and rectovaginal fistulas as vesicovaginal may arise as a result of underserved birth complications or miscarriage or after rape. For long lasting birth processes, which often take place in developing countries without medical help, complications are common. Also, by prolonged stretching of the vagina or birth obstacles can cause lacerations of the skin, mucosa and muscle structures between the vagina and intestine, which partially heal with defects of different sizes. These defects, which can also epithelialisieren over form length or tubular connections between the vagina and the colon or even most of the urinary bladder. These compounds may form by chronic inflammation of complex programs, the entire distance places high demands on the surgery. If no qualified treatment is carried out, it comes to uncontrolled leakage of urine or feces from the vagina. These women are considered dirty, often left in the wake of its partners, shunned by their communities and excluded from their social community.