Yahoo Lifestyle Women We Love: Catherine Hamlin
Catherine Hamilton.
February 2014 has proven to be a month of incredible achievements for a true homegrown hero, Dr Catherine Hamlin, who, just after celebrating her 90th birthday, has now been nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize.
The nomination is for her 50-year commitment to treating tens of thousands of women in Ethiopia with the debilitating childbirth injury, obstetric fistula. This horrific condition, which affects 5% of women worldwide, occurs as a result of prolonged and obstructive childbirth resulting in horrible injuries to the pregnant mother.
Fistulas occur during difficult births when the baby gets stuck in the birth canal during labour. In the west, doctors would call for a Caesarian section, but elsewhere the untreated women are left with shocking injuries of constant incontinence, severe infection and, in extreme cases, paralysis. The baby almost always dies.
As well as being left with the devastation of a stillborn, the woman must then also deal with the humiliation of being unable to control bodily functions. In most cases, she is left by her husband to find himself a healthy wife, and ostracised by her family. All due to an injury that is not only easily preventable, but quickly fixed at that.
Hamlin along with her husband Dr Reginald Hamlin, originally arrived in Ethiopia in 1959, under athree-year contract with the government to set up a midwifery school in Addis Ababa. However, after seeing first hand the vast numbers of Ethiopian womenwith fistulas, the Hamlins stayed on, devoting a lifetime of dedication to the field.
In the face of massive hurdles – no funding, no resources, a series of natural disasters from drought to famine and a country at war – the Hamlins persisted with their groundbreaking work. Over the ensuing decades they treated some 34,000 women, have trained women to become midwives, a number of which are former victims of the injury, she has worked to develop outreach programs to assist women in poorer, isolated areas and even built their own hospital where free reconstructive surgery is performed. Most importantly they set up the Hamlin Midwifery College and the Addis Ababa Fistula Hospital as a training facility to empower former patients to become the new generation of Ethiopian surgeons and midwives.
Even after the death of her husband in 1993, Hamlin remained in Ethiopia, determined to continue their legacy. Now, Hamlin continues to work as a practicing surgeon and serves as an inspiration to many. In February the Ethiopian Government nominated her for the 26th annual Nobel Peace Prize which will be announced March 8.
Undoubtedly, the 34,000-plus Ethiopian women she has saved from a life of isolation, misery and shame, endorse the nomination. As do we.
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