UNFPA TRAINS 20 REHABILITATED FISTULA PATIENTS (PAGE 11, OCT 9, 2010)

TWENTY women who have been treated of obstetric fistula in Northern Ghana have successfully acquired skills in various trades.
It was a joyous occasion for the women at the Ghana Institute of Linguistics and Bible Translating (GILLBT) centre in Tamale when the women demonstrated and showed, with pride, the products they had developed based on the skills they had acquired. The products included batik, pastries, bread, soap, pomade and shea-butter .
The 20 women are among a total of 317 women who have been treated of obstetric fistula in Northern Ghana under the programme ‘Strengthening Obstetric Fistula Prevention Activities and Access to Treatment in Ghana’, launched in Ghana by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) with other partners in 2005.
It is part of a global campaign covering 30 countries, including Ghana, to end obstetric fistula. It has been estimated by the World Health Organisation that more than two million women suffering from fistula remained untreated in developing countries and that at least 50,000 to 100,000 new cases occurred each year.
In Ghana most of the cases are in the three northern regions due to a multiplicity of factors that include poor maternal delivery services, early child birth and forced marriages.
Victims of obstetric fistula are mostly poor women because their social and economic status in the society expose them to what is referred to as ‘road to maternal death’, which are delay to seek health care, delay in arriving at the health facility and delay in receiving health care once the woman arrives at the health facility.
Most of them are often abandoned or ignored by their husbands and families, and in most times ostracised by their communities.
Hajia Salamatu Futa of the UNFPA field office in Tamale explained that the ‘Strengthening Obstetric Fistula Prevention Activities and Access to Treatment in Ghana’ programme is in three phases; prevention, treatment and rehabilitation.
She indicated that the training of the women was part of the third phase of the project which was rehabilitation aimed at empowering the women to integrate successfully into their respective communities.
Hajia Salamatu indicated that many more women who were suffering from obstetric fistula had been identified and were in line to undergo surgery.
The Chief Executive of the Tamale Metropolitan Assembly, Alhaji Friday Haruna, who graced the occasion, indicated that the assembly would collaborate with the Ghana Health Service to consider the possibility of expanding the Tamale Fistula Repair Centre.
Since its establishment last year, the centre had been overwhelmed with cases due to the increasing number of women reporting obstetric fistula.
Alhaji Friday urged district assemblies to support fistula patients to register under the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS), since most of them were poor and could not afford the premium.
He appealed to development organisations to support the training and rehabilitation of the remaining women who had been treated.