LAHORE: Since millions of women are suffering and living with fistula, a devastating childbirth injury, in silence and isolation around the world, an International Day to End Obstetric Fistula (IDEOF) is observed on May 23 every year to highlight the sufferings of women and demand for facilities and services to treat them.
This year the IDEOF is being observed based on a theme “End Fistula Now: Invest in Quality Healthcare, Empower Communities”.
Fistula occurs to women, who experience longer duration of pregnancy and cause serious complications, if left untreated. It also becomes fatal to unborn babies as approximately 90 per cent of such cases end in stillbirth.
This was stated by Dr Tayyaba Majeed and Dr Nayyar Sultana, who are treating fistula patients under the banner of Pakistan National Forum on Women’s Health (PNFWH), an organization established by the Pakistan Medical Association, while addressing a press conference at Lahore Press Club on Sunday.
Dr Tayyaba said some 5,000 women and girls were still living with fistula in Pakistan and they needed to be provided access to safe holistic fistula treatment (surgical repair and social reintegration) as a key strategy for eliminating it. She said the good news was that “fistula is now not only treatable but preventable”.
She said “Ending Fistula by 2030”, target set by the United Nations under SDGs, required a paradigm shift in the thinking of governments and healthcare providers to invest more and improve the quality of care for maternal health, fistula prevention, and treatment. She highlighted the key role of communities in addressing social, cultural, political, and economic determinants that impact maternal health and sexual reproductive health, and reproductive rights and contribute to the occurrence of obstetric fistula.
She said obstetric fistula was a condition causing added suffering and isolation to at least two million poor and marginalized women and girls worldwide. Recognizing the gravity of the challenge and to give a high level importance to this miserable condition, she said the UN was looking for a sustainable scale-up of quality treatment and healthcare services, including the availability of adequate numbers of trained, competent fistula surgeons and midwives to significantly reduce maternal and newborn mortality and to eradicate obstetric fistula.
Dr Nayyar Sultana said fistula could be prevented when women get timely maternity care through skilled birth attendance or midwifery care or emergency obstetric care (as needed), with accessibility to family planning services.
In Pakistan, she said, the fistula treatment centres were now available in Karachi, Hyderabad, Larkana, Multan, Lahore, Quetta, Peshawar, Abbottabad and Islamabad.
As change starts with the community, she said community empowerment and participation were key to successfully addressing the determinants of maternal mortality and morbidity and ensured the utilization of fistula prevention and treatment services by women, girls, their families, and communities. She said the UN’s goal to end maternal deaths by 2030 required strong political leadership, accelerated investment and action, with passionate and committed champions, to achieve this historic and transformative goal. All the key participants believed that it was possible to end maternal deaths in Pakistan by 2030, if the government would show its will and commitment through training of competent, skilled midwives to be posted in every BHU & THQ; career structure of midwives, increment in their salaries and providing a service structure; activation of BHU and THQ in rural Pakistan and slums of cities; and provision of free basic and emergency obstetric care to all pregnant women.
Syed Rahat Ali Bukhari, project coordinator of Jahandad Society for Community Development, also spoke on the occasion.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2022
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