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Background -
Work amongst poor women with childbirth injuries
In 1959,
Dr Reg and Catherine Hamlin, Gynaecologists and Obstetricians from New Zealand
and Australia went to Ethiopia to work in the Princess Tsehai Hospital in Addis
Ababa. They soon found the distressing state of many women who had complications
in childbirth and who were not welcomed in the local hospitals because of the
offensive nature of their injuries - the smell!
By 1975,
the Hamlins had raised sufficient funds world-wide to build their own dedicated
Hospital for these patients. A new 50 bed
hospital was opened then and aproximately 25 women a week are treated for
vaginal fistulas. Great distances are travelled by patients, even from
Kenya, Sudan and Somalia and often on foot.
Their
efforts have been assisted by this
charity, which was formed in 1968, following a fund-raising tour by the Hamlins to the Birmingham Medical School in England.
Dr Reg Hamlin died in 1993. He is buried in
the British War Graves Cemetery in Addis Ababa and the epitaph on his
tombstone fittingly reads, "A man of vision and compassion". |
