More than 60 women suffering from fistula have been fully treated in Galkayo medical centre during the course of 2013. The director of the centre, Dr Abdiqadir Mohamud Jama, said there were another 23 patients who had received initial treatment and were yet to recover fully.
Women travel to the centre from across Somalia and also from Ethiopia. The hospital provides a free service, including food and nutrition for the patients, with support from the Ministry of Health and the UN’s Population Fund (UNFPA).
UNFPA and the ministry are cooperating to end the misery of obstetric fistula, which mainly occurs in women giving birth in rural areas in the hands of untrained attendants. Somali women with fistula suffer humiliation, isolation, and stigma as a result of the symptoms of fistula. At times they are abandoned by their husbands and families.
MR
