Catherine Hamlin

Catherine Hamlin ( born January 24, 1924 in Sydney ) is an Australian gynecology and obstetrics. Together with her husband Reginald Hamlin she founded in 1974 in Addis Ababa Fistula Hospital in Ethiopia which are treated free of charge in the women with obstetric fistulas. For her decades of work on behalf of women in Ethiopia Catherine Hamlin as her husband has received several awards, among other things, so in 2009 with the Right Livelihood Award.

Life

Catherine Hamlin (nee Nicholson ) was born in 1924 in Sydney and graduated in 1946 her medical studies at the university there from. She was then at St Joseph 's Hospital in Auburn and at St George Hospital in Kogarah active and specialized in after the Crown Street Women's Hospital in Sydney in the field of obstetrics. In 1950 she married Reginald Hamlin, whom she had met at the Crown Street Women's Hospital and the doctor as it was in the field of gynecology and obstetrics. In May 1959 she went with her husband to Addis Ababa, where they both built a midwifery school as part of a three -year project by the Ethiopian government.

After the end of their contract Catherine and Reginald Hamlin remained in Ethiopia, to devote himself first at the Princess Tsahai Memorial Hospital and from 1974 to Addis Ababa Fistula which they founded, Hospital of the treatment of obstetric fistula in women. These arise as a result of birth complications or miscarriages connections between the vagina and the bladder or intestines, as a result, it is an uncontrolled leakage of urine or feces from the vagina, have for affected women often have serious social consequences, as they are mostly from their leave partners and are excluded from their social community.

Catherine and Reginald Hamlin developed a surgical technique that results in about 93 percent of patients to a complete cure, and treated in the course of more than four decades, more than 20,000 women. After the death of her husband in August 1993 Catherine Hamlin took over the management of the Addis Ababa Fistula Hospital.

Awards

Catherine Hamlin was recorded in 1995 as a Companion in the Order of Australia and thus received the highest honor in their home country. The University of Sydney (2005) and the University of Dundee (2006) awarded her an honorary doctorate. From the American College of Surgeons (2003) and the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh ( 2005), she was appointed an Honorary Fellow. 2009 Catherine Hamlin received the Right Livelihood Award.

Works (selection)

• The Hospital by the River: A Story of Hope. Oxford 2004
• Australian Stories of Life. Sydney 2005 ( as co-author )