HARI SREENIVASAN: Next: one
effort to address a humiliating
medical injury that afflicts
perhaps one million women in the
developing world who lack access
to safe medical facilities.
Fred de Sam Lazaro
reports from Kenya.
It's part of his Agents
for Change series.
FRED DE SAM LAZARO: In a
new hospital in Eldoret,
Kenya, these women are
awaiting surgery to
fix a condition that's widely
misunderstood and reviled,
one that's made them outcasts,
often in their own families.
It's called obstetric fistula,
an injury to the birth canal
caused, in most cases, by
prolonged labor that
leaves a woman incontinent.
Perhaps one million women in
the developing world suffer from
fistulas, a condition virtually
wiped out in industrialized
nations with better
access to prenatal care
and medical facilities.
At least once a week, these
patients hear a message of
hope from a woman who knows all
too well their suffering;
41-year-old Sarah Omega was just
19 when she was raped and became
pregnant.
SARAH OMEGA, Fistula
Survivor: I was so scared.
I didn't want to secure an
abortion because of my faith,
yes, so I kept the pregnancy.
FRED DE SAM LAZARO: Omega
eventually spent 38 hours in
a difficult labor, much of it
at home.
In the process, the
baby died, and she
suffered a large fistula.
For 12 years, Omega
says she was subjected
to isolation and shame.
SARAH OMEGA: I
attempted suicide twice.
Every night, I would go to bed.
I would say, God, please don't
allow me to see tomorrow,
because my tomorrow, every day,
I would wake up in the morning,
see the sun, I would cry
because I knew it was another
day of pain, of humiliation,
of suffering in isolation.
FRED DE SAM LAZARO: That anguish
landed her in a psychiatric
ward, and it was there that
a visiting doctor
came to her bedside.
SARAH OMEGA: He assured
me that my problem
was going to be fixed.
And I remember that day
he told me: "I'm seeing
a lot of hope in you.
I want you to get healed."
FRED DE SAM LAZARO: That doctor
was 49-year-old Hillary Mabeya,
a gynecologist and surgeon
who has devoted his entire
practice to women with fistulas.
This 88-bed hospital was built
for his use, as part of a broad
campaign by the California-based
Fistula Foundation.
DR.
HILLARY MABEYA, Gynocare Fistula
Center: These are patients who
need care, they need support,
and they need a
lot of counseling.
They suffer so much from society
because of their condition.
FRED DE SAM LAZARO: It's
difficult to pinpoint
how many women suffer
from fistula in this
country, in part because most
of them are kept isolated by
their communities and even
their families.
But in recent years,
since the campaign began
to raise awareness of
fistula, awareness that
it is treatable, some 7,000
women have emerged from hiding
each year seeking surgery.
Fistula awareness groups have
taken to the streets to educate
others about the condition,
and where to get help.
We watched as these women, many
of them survivors themselves,
fanned out through the Western
city of Mumias, and
encouraged women suffering
from incontinence issues
to get free screening
offered by the campaign.
Organizer Habiba Mohamed
said people still have many
misconceptions about fistula.
HABIBA MOHAMED, Community
Organizer: Maybe she
has been bewitched.
Maybe she was promiscuous and
had a relationship outside
marriage when she was pregnant.
FRED DE SAM LAZARO:
Mohamed's group, WADADIA,
recently arranged the
transportation and treatment
for 35-year-old Rachel Juma
Wasamba, who lives in a remote
village in Western Kenya.
Wasamba was lucky.
Her husband stayed
with her throughout her
condition and treatment.
Many husbands abandon their
wives in such situations.
Amina Mushele says that's
what happened to her.
AMINA MUSHELE, Fistula Survivor
(through translator): My husband
couldn't take it anymore, so he
left me to marry another woman.
FRED DE SAM LAZARO: She had
surgery one year ago, and now
makes and sells goods in the
town marketplace, using
skills she got from a training
program sponsored by WADADIA.
The training, ranging from
hairstyling, to seamstress
work, and computer skills, helps
reintegrate women back
into their community.
HABIBA MOHAMED: The moment
someone has been treated, and
she has healed, you can be able
to see a significant change in
her life, and not only in her
life, in her family, in her
children.
So, it has a ripple effect
to an entire family and
the entire community.
FRED DE SAM LAZARO: Back in
Eldoret, Dr. Mabeya is kept very
busy at one of the few places
where fistula surgery
is performed and
offered free of charge.
Working six days a week, he
operates on 45 women a month.
Since that's just a
fraction of the new cases,
he is also training other
doctors in the region,
and he is working to prevent
fistulas in the first place.
DR.
HILLARY MABEYA: Fistula is
almost 100 percent preventable.
In developed countries,
it's not even there.
FRED DE SAM LAZARO: He says
fistula can be avoided if
adequate prenatal and emergency
care is made available
when complications
arise during pregnancy.
More than half of all
Kenyan women still deliver
their babies at home.
For her part, Sarah Omega says
her healing became complete
when she able to give birth
to a health baby daughter,
Jade, who recently turned two.
SARAH OMEGA: She means
just the whole world to me.
I remember at some point, I
would pray and say, God, if
you give me a baby, that baby
will erase the pain I have
gone through in this life.
FRED DE SAM LAZARO: And Omega
continues to help other women
erase the pain of fistula.
SARAH OMEGA: I decided to change
the pain I had gone through
into something beautiful,
something that will help
me reach out to other
women, something that
will allow other women
to live a normal life like me.
FRED DE SAM LAZARO: She
travels frequently to talk
about her experiences,
but, more regularly,
her advocacy happens at
the bedside of women at
the new fistula hospital.
For the "PBS NewsHour," I'm Fred
de Sam Lazaro in Eldoret, Kenya.
HARI SREENIVASAN: Fred's
reporting is a partnership
with the Under-Told
Stories Project at the
University of St.
Thomas in Minnesota.