The angel of Addis Ababa
When Doctor Catherine Hamlin and her husband, Reg, arrived at the Princess Tsehai Memorial Hospital in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, 1959, the patients they saw often had dreadful complications. Many of them were on the verge of death but the most sorrowful of all were the fistula cases. An obstetric fistula is an injury caused by an obstructed childbirth that can lead to severe incontinence and other complications. “These girls and women had suffered more than any woman should be called upon to endure,” Catherine said. “To meet only one was to be profoundly moved and called forth the utmost compassion that the human heart was capable of feeling.”
They had never treated such an injury before, but knew they couldn’t forsake these women and girls whose injuries resulted in shame and social isolation. Within a few years, the couple had mastered the treatment of fistula, and opened a dedicated hospital that drew destitute and desperate patients to its doors. The women travelled so far that Reg called them fistula pilgrims. Together, Catherine and Reg would restore health and dignity to more than 60,000 women.
Catherine had said that when she died, the hospital would go on until fistula has been eradicated and every woman in Ethiopia was assured safe delivery of their child. After she passed away at her home on March 18, the Chief Executive Officer of Hamlin Fistula Ethiopia, Tesfaye Mamo, promised that this, Catherine tells how she begun her journey.
