TRIBUTES HAVE been paid to an Irish doctor and member of the Medical Missionaries of Mary for her work in setting up a project in Uganda where women can obtain treatment for obstetric fistula which can have devastating consequences on their lives.
Professor of obstetrics and gynaecology at UCC, Prof John Higgins said the work of Dr Maura Lynch and her colleagues in the Medical Missionaries of Mary at Kitovu Hospital in Uganda was having a major impact on the lives of women in the region.
“This is a devastating condition, no longer seen in the developed world, where labour goes on for many days, the baby dies, the womb stops contracting and damage is caused to the bladder and bowel wall with devastating consequences.
“These women not only have to endure the trauma of delivering a dead baby but also the ongoing loss of dignity through the constant leakage of urine and faeces,” said Prof Higgins at the launch of a photographic exhibition detailing the work of the Kitovu Fistula Project.
Entitled Restoring Dignity, the exhibition is the work of Irish photographer Laurence Boland who documented the fistula programme which, under Dr Lynch and travelling surgeons John Kelly and Michael Breen, treats some 250 women with fistula each year.
Between July 2005 and December 2008, some 1,224 women have received fistula repair while 15 doctors have been trained in fistula repair surgery and 24 nurses in fistula care management at the hospital which is located 120km southwest of the capital Kampala.
The exhibition is being hosted by the LivinghealthClinic in Mitchelstown whose director, Dr Tom O’Callaghan, said the clinic was delighted to host the exhibition given the clinic’s commitment to creating links between healthcare in Ireland and the developing world.
“As part of our commitment to create links between healthcare here and the developing world we are delighted to host our first photographic exhibition in the atrium of the clinic,” said Dr O’Callaghan.
“The exhibition is particularly appropriate as Cork University Maternity Hospital is now running a full consultant and midwife-led antenatal service in the clinic one day a week and is providing full antenatal care to all expectant mothers in the region.
“These photos tell the courageous story of mothers and how they are helped to move away from a life where they merely endure and exist without hope to having their dignity and self-respect restored thanks to the Obstetric Fistula Project at Kitovu Hospital,” he added.
The documentation of the Obstetric Fistula Programme was part of The Simon Cumbers Media Challenge Fund funded by Irish Aid.
All proceeds from the LivinghealthClinic exhibition, which runs until 31st May, go to the further development of services at the project.