Source: Daily Nation
In Kenya, there is an estimated 7,000 new obstetric fistula cases each year - thousands of these are yet to get treatment.
According to Dr Hillary Mabeya, one of the few surgeons in the country specialised in obstetric fistula, only about 400 get treatment, since the medical camps available in Kakamega, Kisii, Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital, as well as Kenyatta National Hospital, cannot handle all the patients.
Symptoms of obstetric fistula include leakage of either urine and stool. In severe cases, some women report both. Obstetric fistula, he notes, affects the fertility rate of a woman by about 40 percent.
Women who have previously suffered from odstetric fistula should deliver through caesarean section to prevent recurrence. However, this does not always happen.
"Many women cannot afford to have a caesarean section, which costs about Sh3,000 in a government hospital, and so they deliver normally, a factor that causes recurrence," he notes.
He explains that besides high cost of treatment, lack of information makes it difficult for affected women to seek treatment since they do not know where to get help.
The solution, he says, lies in reducing the cost of delivery in health facilities, especially in remote parts of the country, ensuring that there are enough qualified personnel, and sensitising people about this condition.
"Fistula is purely a reproductive health issue that can be rectified once a patient seeks treatment."
Kenya Obstetrical and Gynaecological Society, National chairman, Dr Otieno Nyunya, says that it's important for all women to give birth in health facilities.
"More than 1.5 million women give birth in Kenya annually. About 15 percent of those deliveries develop complications – that is why it is important for women to attend anti-natal care so that they are monitored from the start," Dr Nyunya says.
"About 60 percent deliver at home - these ones risk developing fistula, in case of prolonged labour and obstruction while in the hands of unskilled birth attendants," he cautions.