Culled from the Punch.
Mrs. Mabelus Ubi has been pregnant thrice and she has had three live births. As such, it wasn’t a big deal when she went into labour for her fourth delivery.
Mrs. Mabelus Ubi has been pregnant thrice and she has had three live births. As such, it wasn’t a big deal when she went into labour for her fourth delivery.
Things weren’t as smooth as she had expected, however, as she was in labour for four days at a private hospital in Ikom, Cross River State. When the doctors finally decided that her case was beyond their expertise, she was referred to another hospital where she was later told that her baby had died in the womb.
In the case of Asetuh Ibrahim, she was just 16 years old when she visited the hospital to be delivered of her first baby. A young school girl who was married off to her dad’s 48-year-old business partner, Asetuh was ignorant of what childbirth was all about.
Her case was worsened by the fact that, as a religious woman, she could not fathom why a male doctor would ask her to take off her underwear for medical examination. Unfortunately, by the time her husband agreed that the male physician on duty could attend to her, the worst had happened.
Her physician, who would not be named, explains the problem: “Because she had a prolonged labour, the unborn child was tightly pressed against her pelvis, cutting off blood flow to the vesico-vaginal wall. Consequently, the affected tissue necrotised (died), leaving a hole.”
In the case of 44-year-old Gladys, her VVF was as a result of the violent rape she went through when armed robbers unleashed terror on her neighbourhood in Ijegun area of Lagos. And because of the multiple numbers of her assailants, she had suffered injury to her bladder and urethra, and needed major gynaecological procedures to correct the injury.
Physicians describe Vesico-vaginal fistula as a subtype of abnormal female urogenital fistula that extends between the bladder and the vagina, which allows the continuous involuntary discharge of urine into the vaginal vault.
While experts say the magnitude of the fistula problem worldwide is unknown, though believed to be immense, they say obstetric fistula affects girls and women almost exclusively in resource-poor settings, especially when a woman is unable to deliver her baby safely and cannot access a C-Section.
They say the devastating condition affects more than two million women worldwide, with an estimated 50,000 to 100,000 additional cases each year — a figure some believe to be an underestimation.
According to the Country Manager of the United States Agency for International Development Fistula Care Project, Mr. Iyeme Efem, not less than 200,000 women in Nigeria are currently suffering from VVF, which represents about 40 per cent of global burden of the scourge.
And as if to underscore that claim, in February, President Goodluck Jonathan ordered 66,000 persons living with VVF to be given free repair surgery this year alone.
To read more visit the Punch.
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