About two hundred eighteen thousand women in Nigeria are awaiting surgery for obstetric fistula. With all the current support, only about five thousand cases are being treated annually. At this pace, it could take as many as forty years to clear the current backlog.
For the women living with this condition, the injury from childbirth is only the beginning of a different kind of suffering. Ostracised by their communities, many lose hope, believing they will never be healed. Those who have had fistula for thirty years develop additional complications including bladder stones, back pain, fever and recurrent urinary tract infections.
Halima Abubakar, who has been counselling patients at the Dr Amina Bello Centre for fistula treatment for six years, said most of the women she encounters have lost hope. They are affected emotionally and psychologically, she told Channels Television.
The Nigerian government has seventeen fistula centres across the country and recently rehabilitated three centres in Gombe, Imo State and Kaduna. However, there are few experts and few medical personnel who are interested in this area of medicine, according to health officials.
The government has shared plans to boost maternal and newborn health, from a one billion dollar facility support promised in March twenty twenty-five, to joining a one hundred seventy-five million dollar landmark global commitment to improve access to life-saving maternal and newborn health commodities during the seventy-ninth World Health Assembly.
Advocates say eliminating obstetric fistula is within reach and that the science behind it is well known. The target is zero fistula cases by twenty thirty. They say there is need for home-to-house searches to identify existing cases and that the out-of-pocket burden on families accessing healthcare must be addressed.
In May twenty twenty-six, advocates for maternal healthcare marked the International Day to drive investment to end fistula and childbirth injuries. With a devastating injury and most times with no baby to show for it, those women are mostly left destitute, highlighting the urgent need for both surgical treatment and rehabilitation.