The hospital website should be live any moment!!!! This is the most exciting time in the pageant for me because this is what I am here for.
There are three institutions linked: the Borama Fistula Hospital, Amoud University Medical School, and The Borama General Hospital (they have a maternity ward). I am working hard to save mother's lives and restore dignity back to young women.
The Liberal bill for giving young mothers dignified access to medical attention in a respectful non-paternalistic manner failed by only 6 votes in the House of Commons of Canada yesterday!!!! I am chagrined, but I`ll work hard, see what I can do to get that Bill pass. My father tried to marry me off when I was 14. If he succeeded, and I was in the village, nor abortion nor contraception, I would have died in childbirth. My body wasn`t ready for that at fourteen and the village the future husband was from was too far for medical access for me to have delivered it safely. I am alive, and every day I am alive, I know there is a teenage girl who was in my situation who is dying right now. One woman dies each minute giving birth, most of whom are young mothers.
Here is a preview of the site and some photos of the hospital. When it`s up, it will move you. One of the operations of Dr. Qaws was mentioned in half the sky. Since these women are outcasts that are regarded in a humiliating manner by fellow patients, he decided, along with Dr. Walhad to keep them in one hospital, where the only patients are fistula patients. In Borama, Somalia, that was how the Borama Fistula hospital got started. Oprah and Nicholas Kristof`s Half the Sky only discuss the operation in Edna`s hospital Dr. Qaws preformed on the girl who married her cousin, who tried to slice off her head with a knife when he found out that she had fistula. She survived and escaped to Edna`s hospital, where Dr. Qaws treated her. The fistula hospital is a referral hospital, with skills training, literacy, and micro-finance programmes to reintegrate these women into society as a whole person. After the hospital was opened, World Vision Kenya takes a bus and brings patients from places like, Mogadishu through Punt-land, through the horn of Africa, until they get to Borama, two hours away from the Eritrean border. They are treated there. Some even become nurses.
Oprah and Nicholas Kristoff did an commendable report on Dr. Qaw`s early operation before he opened the fistula hospital. My main goal, as a contestant for Miss Universe Canada is to get these Oprah Winfrey and Nicholas Kristof to follow up with the doctor and find out what happened years after the operation.
The university medical school was found with $8,000!!! The hospital only treats 50-100 women from across Somalia, due to limited capacity and supplies, but they need to treat 700 women. Why is this crucial?
What is fistula:
Click on Fistula Hospital the left corner. http://sawnews.tk/
From Fistula Foundation:
"What is a fistula?
A: A fistula is a hole. An obstetric fistula of the kind that occurs in many developing countries is a hole between a woman's birth passage and one or more of her internal organs. This hole develops over many days of obstructed labour, when the pressure of the baby's head against the mother's pelvis cuts off blood supply to delicate tissues in the region. The dead tissue falls away and the woman is left with a hole between her vagina and her bladder (called a vesicovaginal fistula or VVF) and sometimes between her vagina and rectum (rectovaginal fistula, RVF). This hole results in permanent incontinence of urine and/or feces. A majority of women who develop fistulas are abandoned by their husbands and ostracized by their communities because of their inability to have children and their foul smell. Traumatic fistula is the result of sexual violence. The injury can occur through rape or women being butchered from the inside with bayonets, wood or even rifles. The aim is to destroy the women and the community within which the sufferer lives. Once committed the survivor, her husband, children and extended family become traumatized and humiliated. The Panzi Hospital in Congo is a pioneer in treating victims of traumatic fistula.
Q: Can fistula be "cured"?
A: Yes. An obstetric fistula can be closed with intravaginal surgery. If her surgery is performed by a skilled surgeon, a fistula patient has a good chance of returning to a normal life with full control of her bodily functions.
The World Health Organization estimates that approximately 2 million women have untreated fistula and that approximately 100,000 women develop fistula each year. Fistula is most prevalent in sub-Saharan Africa and Asia.
There are an estimated 100,000 women suffering with untreated fistula, and another 9,000 women who develop fistula each year.
Less than 6 in 10 women in developing countries give birth with any trained professional, such as a midwife or a doctor. When complications arise, as they do in approximately 15% of all births, there is no one available to treat the woman, leading to disabling injuries like fistula, and even death.
The root causes of fistula are grinding poverty and the low status of women and girls.
In developing countries, the poverty and malnutrition in children contributes to the condition of stunting, where the girl skeleton, and therefore pelvis as well, do not fully mature. This stunted condition can contribute to obstructed labour, and therefore fistula."
Let's all work together to eradicate fistula today!!!!!
Act now!
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