Fistula: Succour as FG set to end challenges suffered by women, girl child

Health Minister, Dr Osagie Ehanire

Succour came the way of Nigerian women as Federal Government has reiterated its resolve towards alleviating the sufferings of women living with the abnormal health condition popularly known as Fistula.

The Minister of Health, Dr Osagie Ehanire, gave the assurance in Abuja, during the implementation of a ‘Rehabilitation and Reintegration Project for Women and the Girl Child’ themed: ‘Momentum Safe Surgery in Family Planning and Obstetrics 2022’.

Obstetric Fistula is a prevalent public health issue in Nigeria, posing devastating maternal morbidities afflicting women.

It is estimated that over 13,000 new cases occur annually among young girls and women, thus the urgent need to end this challenge becomes crucial to the Federal Ministry of Health.

Stakeholders who spoke at the event, including representatives of TEENS Ambassador Foundation expressed optimism that hope is not lost for women suffering from this medical disorder.

The Minister who was represented by the Director and Head of Family Health Department, Dr Salma Ibrahim, who expressed grave concern over the plight of the affected women, frowned at the activities of quack doctors leading to the scourge of fistula crisis in the country.

“Sometimes what we call the hydrogen fistula, it happens during cesarean section where medical doctors that are unqualified, some are even quack doctors, attempt to do cesarean section they end up creating a hole in the bladder and leads to leakage of urine or leakage of stool on the rectum.

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“So this is far devastating to women and to girls because you can imagine smelling urine and stool. So the first devastating thing is that they are abandoned by their partners – by their husbands.

“They are also abandoned by their immediate family members and most of these women are young girls and uneducated, they are not empowered because they are not working. They don’t have any source of income.

“What we aim to do is to work together with all our partners to ensure that in fact, zero tolerance to this will completely stop the occurrence of fistula in Nigeria.

On his part, Samuel Munza, Medical Coordinator, TEEN Ambassadors Foundation observed that “some girls get married at their miniclade, their first menstrual period is like a sign, it is like the day of signing the contract to get married at very young teenage age 12, 13 years we even have issue of nine years old getting married. Earlier on you heard the opening address by the representative of the Minister for Health, where she mentioned the story of the 16-year-old woman who got married between the age of 9 to 13, and then the first time she had sexual intercourse was when she took in and ended up with fistula.

“That means she has lived up to 50 years with that fistula. Of course, what happened was that she was thrown on the street then in Kano and at the end of the day, she couldn’t seek help; for imagine how long this period of 50 years plus and she is only getting to find help just recently. So the problem is quite enormous,” he noted.

While pledging the resolve of the Foundation towards alleviating the suffering of the victims of Fistula, Mr Munza said: “Our role here as TEEN Ambassador Foundation is that, apart from providing educational services because we provide prevention services through educating the masses and as we told you that the Teenage population is very important here, not just the Teenage population but the women and girl child generally, and equally the men because at TEEN Ambassador Foundation we engage the communities to bring to them awareness on important health conditions.

“We also provide medical services usually free of charge to the less privileged in the communities all over the country,” he stressed.

In his remarks, Professor James Ayangunna from the University of Ibadan stressed the need for adequate provisions for rehabilitation and reintegration of the affected women into society after the surgery.

He said: “We want to look at it from another perspective not necessarily from the surgery side. When doctors have done their own work, the surgeons, they’ve corrected it, they’ve done it, there must be ways of rehabilitating these women and there must be ways of integrating them back into society. So that is what we are here for.

“We know the doctors would have done a good job, they’ve corrected the fistula case but the woman would have to go back into the society, the society that has rejected her. How do we now do it?

“First, you rehabilitate and the second aspect is the re-integrating; you re-integrate the women back to the society for proper social functioning so that they will be able to continue with their lives, that’s why we are here,” Professor Ayangunna said.

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