A Walk to Beautiful
Giving birth to babies is joyous for women. It is however not so true for some women living in rural areas of Ethiopia, Africa. Their nightmares start with delivering babies. They are devalued and abandoned by their husbands; despised and condemned by their parents and siblings. They have no social life but being scorned and alienated by their neighbors. They lose their dignity as human beings. The only choice left for them seems waiting for death in little dark straw huts their parents build for them. The reason these women lead such a miserable life that people living in civilized world barely imagine lies in the fact that they are fistula sufferers. The documentary “A Walk to Beautiful” unveils the heartbreaking world.
Fistula is a disease resulted from a woman’s long obstructed labor caused by either her premature pelvic structure or malformation/malposition of a baby in the womb. In rural Ethiopia, prenatal care is unavailable. The inadequate and yet fallacious knowledge of pregnancy and labor is passed down from one generation to another. In addition, women in country areas engage in tedious physical work since very early ages. It consumes the majority of the limited energy provided by poor nutrition, which normally benefits their physical growth and maturation. Compared to their counterparts in developed countries, they are much shorter and skinnier. Furthermore, they usually get married and pregnant at ages 13 or 14 when their bodies have not completely developed. As a consequence, a difficult childbirth is expectable. Most of them have stillbirths after painfully laboring for 5-10 days. When they finally push the babies out, they have already damaged their internal organs including vagina, rectum and bladder. For instance, a patient had holes between vagina and bladder and between vagina and rectum as well. The patients are literally leaking the smelly contents in their bladders and/or rectums. Fistula also affects patients' muscles and nerves. Patients usually press their legs tightly to hold the leakage when walking or lying on bed. Gradually, the muscles and nerves in legs will be wasted.
Fistula is not difficult to fix by surgery. But to help the patients gain confidence, recognition from their families and society, and to rekindle the hope for life is not an easy task. The situation has been fundamentally changed by Drs. Hamlin and her team. They established the first Fistula Hospital in Ethiopia and averagely operate 30 patients per week for free in the past 30 more years. It is estimated, however, that more than 100,000 patients are still lack of the awareness of the surgical correction. What’s more, the hospital established schooling program to teach patients to read, knit and some basic human anatomy and physiology when the young girls are waiting for the operation. The patients, once thinking they are the only unlucky or punished ones in the world suffering from the awful disease, find those who share the similar experiences as theirs. They communicate, encourage and make friends with each other. The hospital not only cures their physical disorders, but helps resume their personal life.
The story is very touching. It’s an eye opener for people living in developed countries who barely know what is going on in remote areas. Women interviewed in the documentary desperately need the basic quality health care that we have enjoyed and might have taken for granted. There are only about 140 OB/GYN in Ethiopia. Most of them work in big cities. It sometimes takes a rural patient 3 days to get to the hospital, not to mention the time it takes to save enough money for a bus ticket. I am very inspired by the founders of the hospital Dr. Hamlin and her husband. They came to Ethiopia 30 years ago and have stayed for poor fistula patients since then. They respect and love their patients. They cure their physical ailments and bring back their self-esteem and hope. I further understand the reason patients need their own supporting groups, in which they are encouraged and supported rather than being ostracized, detested or mocked. Only the patients know the most the misgivings and hardships they have experienced. Psychosocial treatment such as empathy, support and encouragement is as important as physically healing the diseases.
When the women walk out of the hospital, they are undoubtedly ready to walk toward their beautiful future.
