Issue Brief and Discussion on Obstetric Fistula and its Impact on Women's Lives

When: Tuesday, October 14th, 2003, from 9:30 am to 11:30 am

Where: Woodrow Wilson Center, Washington DC. The Woodrow Wilson Center is located inside the Ronald Reagan Building at 1300 Pennsylvania Ave., NW.

Dr. Anne Peterson, Assistant Administrator, Bureau for Global Health, on behalf of USAID, invited all to join us for a discussion with one of the world's experts on fistula, a debilitating and traumatizing condition.

More than two million women are living with fistula, a debilitating pregnancy-related disability caused by prolonged obstructed labor. Audience members joined world-renowned Dr. Catherine Hamlin, co-founder and Director of the Addis Ababa Fistula Hospital, for a discussion about her work with this condition and the stigma and trauma these women face. Fistula sufferers are often abandoned, forced from their homes, and ostracized by others.

In the last 30 years, the hospital she founded with her husband Dr. Reginald Hamlin has served over 20,000 women and become a major teaching institution for surgeons all over Ethiopia and the developing world.

Obstetric Fistula, although largely preventable, remains a main contributor to maternal death. Often caused by early marriage, lack of appropriate medical care, and a delay in both seeking and receiving care, all of which are preventable, fistula affects between 50,000 and 100,000 women each year.

The event was sponsored by the U.S. Agency for International Development.

Access an Issue Brief addressing Obstetric Fistula and USAID's work in prevention