By Kemo Cham
The Aberdeen Women Center (AWC) is set to host its first camp this year to provide surgeries for women suffering from the debilitating condition of fistula.
Fistula is an infected tunnel between the skin and the anus. It is mainly caused by complicated labour.
Due to its embarrassing nature, Fistula is associated with a lot of stigma in society. This makes it difficult for people who suffer from it to come forward for treatment.
But an even more worrying concern is the scarcity of trained personnel to conduct surgeries on fistula patients. This means that many opt to suffer in silence either because they have no idea what they are dealing with or because there is no means of treatment.
AWC, which is currently the only facility in Sierra Leone that provides surgery for the condition, organises such camps every year. The camps are preceded by a nationwide community outreach to identify people suffering from the condition. Such outreaches are also characterised by sensitisation to encourage the public to come forward for screening.
Alexandra Rigby, Programs Manager at AWC, told Politico that because it is difficult to get a surgeon qualified to handle Fistula, it is hard to get a doctor specialized in its permanently based at the Center. For every camp, she added, foreign based surgeons are flown in to the country.
For this October’s camp, two surgeons are being flown in from the United Kingdom. One of them is coming specifically to handle complicated cases and they will be spending just a month in the country. A second surgeon will spend the rest of the year at the center treating emerging cases.
Rigby said most of the fistula cases they handle in their routine work come from deprived communities, mostly in the provinces.
In the Western Area, cases come mostly from slum communities like Kroo Bay and in Waterloo.
These communities, the AWC Programs Manager said, are among eight districts identified for the pre-camp outreach.
Like every other services AWC provides, this fistula surgery will be free.
© 2019 Politico Online
