Female Medical Disorders in Africa - A Success Story.
Posted: Mon Sep 24, 2018 12:55 pm
Obstetric Fistula.
A sensitive medical problem for women, in fact for families. In countries like Egypt sensitive issues don’t get talked about and therefore never fixed. I post it to show that some poor backward places face up to serious female medical problems – and succeed. In some ways it’s a very positive story about an awful medical problem.
Basically long, young or mishandled child births leads to ripped skin which causes permanent double incontinence and infections if not fixed by skillful surgery – which does not exist in Egypt, maybe not even for the rich. In some cases it can lead to paralysis in the lower leg.
If leads to disgust by community members and often destroys marriages and makes conventional jobs impossible. There is major emotional trauma on the women associated with shame and smell.
Of relevance to Egypt FMG increases the chances of this as do young mothers and we all know that 3 decades of UN FMG programs in Egypt have utterly failed to stem this practice which might be as high as 80-90%. Millions don’t work if managed by morons. http://www.policyproject.com/pubs/MNPI/ ... I_2002.pdf
On a positive note a very poor and backward country Ethiopia has been almost leading the world for 60 years in treatment and prevention led by a remarkable surgeon Catherine Hamlin and her time and the money she scrounged. In the area of NGO’s she is an undoubted hero who never attended a Geneva cocktail party. She is Australian female doctor of a generation that had to be bright, tough, practical, enterprising and unremitting. From an upper middle class background and a superb medical education she moved to Ethiopia with her doctor husband in 1959 and brought up her family there and did the work for local women https://hamlin.org.au/catherine-hamlin/
Decades ago, at least in this country, fistula and FMG were openly discussed without embarrassment because of her media coverage. The NYT has described her as a modern day Mother Teresa. At 94 she still lives in Addis and occasionally helps. A documentary on her won an Emmy.
The Pope, Royal College of Surgeons, a Nobel nominee (twice), the American and Scottish Colleges of Surgeons, 4 or 5 world class universities, the UN and the American Medical Association have awarded her. I can find no record that al Azhar, the Red Crescent or the Copts have recognized or helped her.
Here she is with her trainee midwives part of her prevention program.
Note the cleanliness and order – not found in all places in the region.
Here she is in Addis with our then Prime Minister and her helper Professor Gordon Williams from Harvard. WHO/FAO and related projects generally just get assistance from those with nothing better to do.
She breaks all the U/WHO rules and trains former patients to be nurses and midwives, to use their experience as victims to help others including those with fistula and to preach prevention programs. Her hospital is a post graduate teaching hospital for both Ethiopians and westerners. How many NGO/UN programs would be worth learning from. Her people have travelled abroad to teach doctors in many countries – including India, but not countries in the Middle East. Unlike others she is cheap and treats about 1200 women a year for a budget north, but not by much, of $US500,000 pa. That wouldn’t pay the Cairo office rental of the WHO. She gets no money from the UN and probably doesn’t want any.
More that 2 million world wide, some say 3, have fistula and somewhere up to 150,000 deaths a year.
The Egypt Independent says its rare in Egypt. They give no evidence for this or any other of their views. Rot, FMG increases the risk, poorly trained nurses/midwives adds to the problem as do early marriages and young mothers. Their version (without evidence) is that incompetent surgeons cause it in Egypt – which is pure Monty Python. https://www.egyptindependent.com/poor-h ... nce-women/. The truth is there is no data because no one is interested.
The world famous Johns Hopkins tries to get a picture based on facts. For example in Egypt for every maternal death during child birth there are 297 complications from each birth – twice as many as India and Bangladesh which are much poorer countries. That gives you a picture of Egyptian medical negligence, incompetence or laziness part of which will cause fistula. Egypt can rest easy because these stats are Jew stats produced by that dirty filthy Jew philanthropist Bloomberg and much better research is available in Egypt from philanthropic foundations the names of which are state secrets and the studies can’t be located at this particular time.
Used to be a problem in the 19th century west up to 120 years ago but fixed with modern midwifery and doctor training – something Egypt has yet to find. Prevention isn’t complicated nor expensive.
Modern surgical techniques using electricity, gloves, a disinfectant and a mask work well in 80-90% of cases.
Tentative studies in Egypt indicate that better educated women know and avoid the risk of fistula. This implies that risks are highest amongst the poor – who also marry and have children younger and less access to quality medical care. If correct this explains why there are no stats or help on the basis that it’s a poor person’s problem and not worth it. https://journals.plos.org/plosone/artic ... ne.0085921
In typical fashion Egypt grabbed increasing interest in fistula and established the Africa headquarters in Cairo of the African Fistula and Continence Society (AFCS) in Egypt with itself as head. 8 years later it doesn’t exist but there were nice press conferences at the time. https://www.rcog.org.uk/en/global-netwo ... la-manual/
Some primitive places are franker than Egypt and the International Continuance Society is holding its 7th Workshop for Surgical Repair of Vaginal Fistula & Urinary Incontinence. The workshop will take place on 12-14th December 2018 at the Ministry of Health, Khartoum State, Sudan. Would never happen in Egypt. (Brief checking indicates that all Gyno and Obstetrics professors in Egypt are male and whilst not 150 years of age definitely over 70 and usually with dreadful - only Egyptian - qualifications).
My general point is that fistula is like a lot of health problems in Egypt – ignored – unless it affects the middle class or the west offers a truck load of cash.
A sensitive medical problem for women, in fact for families. In countries like Egypt sensitive issues don’t get talked about and therefore never fixed. I post it to show that some poor backward places face up to serious female medical problems – and succeed. In some ways it’s a very positive story about an awful medical problem.
Basically long, young or mishandled child births leads to ripped skin which causes permanent double incontinence and infections if not fixed by skillful surgery – which does not exist in Egypt, maybe not even for the rich. In some cases it can lead to paralysis in the lower leg.
If leads to disgust by community members and often destroys marriages and makes conventional jobs impossible. There is major emotional trauma on the women associated with shame and smell.
Of relevance to Egypt FMG increases the chances of this as do young mothers and we all know that 3 decades of UN FMG programs in Egypt have utterly failed to stem this practice which might be as high as 80-90%. Millions don’t work if managed by morons. http://www.policyproject.com/pubs/MNPI/ ... I_2002.pdf
On a positive note a very poor and backward country Ethiopia has been almost leading the world for 60 years in treatment and prevention led by a remarkable surgeon Catherine Hamlin and her time and the money she scrounged. In the area of NGO’s she is an undoubted hero who never attended a Geneva cocktail party. She is Australian female doctor of a generation that had to be bright, tough, practical, enterprising and unremitting. From an upper middle class background and a superb medical education she moved to Ethiopia with her doctor husband in 1959 and brought up her family there and did the work for local women https://hamlin.org.au/catherine-hamlin/
Decades ago, at least in this country, fistula and FMG were openly discussed without embarrassment because of her media coverage. The NYT has described her as a modern day Mother Teresa. At 94 she still lives in Addis and occasionally helps. A documentary on her won an Emmy.
The Pope, Royal College of Surgeons, a Nobel nominee (twice), the American and Scottish Colleges of Surgeons, 4 or 5 world class universities, the UN and the American Medical Association have awarded her. I can find no record that al Azhar, the Red Crescent or the Copts have recognized or helped her.
Here she is with her trainee midwives part of her prevention program.
Note the cleanliness and order – not found in all places in the region.
Here she is in Addis with our then Prime Minister and her helper Professor Gordon Williams from Harvard. WHO/FAO and related projects generally just get assistance from those with nothing better to do.
She breaks all the U/WHO rules and trains former patients to be nurses and midwives, to use their experience as victims to help others including those with fistula and to preach prevention programs. Her hospital is a post graduate teaching hospital for both Ethiopians and westerners. How many NGO/UN programs would be worth learning from. Her people have travelled abroad to teach doctors in many countries – including India, but not countries in the Middle East. Unlike others she is cheap and treats about 1200 women a year for a budget north, but not by much, of $US500,000 pa. That wouldn’t pay the Cairo office rental of the WHO. She gets no money from the UN and probably doesn’t want any.
More that 2 million world wide, some say 3, have fistula and somewhere up to 150,000 deaths a year.
The Egypt Independent says its rare in Egypt. They give no evidence for this or any other of their views. Rot, FMG increases the risk, poorly trained nurses/midwives adds to the problem as do early marriages and young mothers. Their version (without evidence) is that incompetent surgeons cause it in Egypt – which is pure Monty Python. https://www.egyptindependent.com/poor-h ... nce-women/. The truth is there is no data because no one is interested.
The world famous Johns Hopkins tries to get a picture based on facts. For example in Egypt for every maternal death during child birth there are 297 complications from each birth – twice as many as India and Bangladesh which are much poorer countries. That gives you a picture of Egyptian medical negligence, incompetence or laziness part of which will cause fistula. Egypt can rest easy because these stats are Jew stats produced by that dirty filthy Jew philanthropist Bloomberg and much better research is available in Egypt from philanthropic foundations the names of which are state secrets and the studies can’t be located at this particular time.
Used to be a problem in the 19th century west up to 120 years ago but fixed with modern midwifery and doctor training – something Egypt has yet to find. Prevention isn’t complicated nor expensive.
Modern surgical techniques using electricity, gloves, a disinfectant and a mask work well in 80-90% of cases.
Tentative studies in Egypt indicate that better educated women know and avoid the risk of fistula. This implies that risks are highest amongst the poor – who also marry and have children younger and less access to quality medical care. If correct this explains why there are no stats or help on the basis that it’s a poor person’s problem and not worth it. https://journals.plos.org/plosone/artic ... ne.0085921
In typical fashion Egypt grabbed increasing interest in fistula and established the Africa headquarters in Cairo of the African Fistula and Continence Society (AFCS) in Egypt with itself as head. 8 years later it doesn’t exist but there were nice press conferences at the time. https://www.rcog.org.uk/en/global-netwo ... la-manual/
Some primitive places are franker than Egypt and the International Continuance Society is holding its 7th Workshop for Surgical Repair of Vaginal Fistula & Urinary Incontinence. The workshop will take place on 12-14th December 2018 at the Ministry of Health, Khartoum State, Sudan. Would never happen in Egypt. (Brief checking indicates that all Gyno and Obstetrics professors in Egypt are male and whilst not 150 years of age definitely over 70 and usually with dreadful - only Egyptian - qualifications).
My general point is that fistula is like a lot of health problems in Egypt – ignored – unless it affects the middle class or the west offers a truck load of cash.
