Board of Directors

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2007 Annual Report Published

The Fistula Foundation published its 3rd Annual Report this summer, summarizing the work of the Foundation and its financial position. Any one wishing to obtain a copy of the report can call our office at 408 249-9596 or email us at info@fistulafoundation.org. Alternatively, you can view and/or download the report directly from the home page of our website at www.fistulafoundation.org.

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Regional Fistula Hospital in Yirgalem Serves Diverse Region

Dr. Larry William, one of the longest serving members of the Fistula Foundation Board of Directors, travelled in June to visit the new regional Fistula Hospital in Yirgalem, in Southern Ethiopia. This was Dr. William's fourth visit to Ethiopia. Dr. William provides the following account of his visit:

The Yirgalem Fistula Hospital is one of the new regional fistula hospitals built to extend the reach of the Addis Ababa Fistula Hospital. It is reached by a 5 hour drive south over a single narrow road that traverses the Great Rift Valley. This hospital was built with funds from the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (NORAD) and has been in operation for only 2 years. Presently it is staffed by Dr. Einar Lande, a Norwegian doctor. Currently about 400 surgeries to correct obstetric fistula are being performed each year by Dr. Einar. The two story Yirgalem Fistula Hospital is within the grounds of the local regional hospital that is the principal facility for the roughly 15 million people of Ethiopia's Southern Nations, Nationalities, and People's Region.

The region is one beset by recurring famines, endemic poverty, high rates of illiteracy, and multiple ethnic groups — each of which has its own distinct language and culture. The enormous cultural diversity of the area and the geographic isolation of many of the tribes create a special mix of problems. For example, Amharic, the official language of Ethiopia and the primary language of the hospital's Ethiopian staff, is not spoken at all by many of these isolated tribal groups. And, many of the tribes here eat a diet that is dramatically different from those of other parts of Ethiopia. Enjera, the basic bread made from teff grain which is eaten in much of Ethiopia, is as foreign to the women of the Konso people as it is to most Americans. "Bread" of the Konso people is a sour, starchy loaf made by scraping and fermenting the pith of the false banana plant.

 

Dr. Einar makes rounds in Yirgalem Hospital.

Patients present with needs for translation that are often challenging and some suffer from feelings of cultural isolation during their hospital stay since there are few women there from their unique tribes. Unfortunately some patients arrive severely malnourished following months of neglect after failed obstetric deliveries and need lengthy feeding before any curative surgery can be begun. Finding patients in a region this diverse and then bringing them to the hospital for care has often meant forging relationships with other charitable organizations in this area. As word spreads about the availability of treatment the patient capacity has grown and likely will continue to grow.

Dr. Larry William with woman from Yirgalem.

The following essay was adapted from an editorial that ran in the San Jose Mercury News by Foundation Executive Director, Kate Grant

Money and political will can save women from dying in childbirth

Every 24 hours, 1,500 women die due to pregnancy and childbirth. That is the equivalent of the downing of five jumbo-jets filled with pregnant or laboring women, and it is the same every day of every year in recent decades, totaling approximately 535,000 deaths per year.

If you just read that statistic and thought, "That can't be true," I urge you to think again, but not of the women you know in this country who, like me, take a safe delivery for granted. Rather, think of the billions of women who live in developing countries, for this is where 99 percent of these deaths occur.

Most women I know enter pregnancy with a great sense of anticipation. And while first-time mothers here may wonder how motherhood will change their lives, very few worry that pregnancy and childbirth might end their lives. The same is not true for women of reproductive age in developing nations. For them, pregnancy and childbirth are still the leading causes of death and disease. According to the World Health Organization, a woman living in sub-Saharan Africa faces a lifetime risk of dying due to pregnancy of 1 in 16; an American woman's lifetime risk is less than 1 in 2,500. This is the largest rich-poor disparity among all the public health indicators tracked by WHO. For me, the most shocking thing about these statistics is that they have changed relatively little in the past two decades - a period during which we've witnessed dramatic improvements in other health indicators in developing countries, such as child survival.

We need to create the political will necessary to save the lives of women around the world. A clear first step in creating that political will is raising widespread awareness of the tragic deaths of women that happen every minute of every day and underscoring the policies and investments that can help save lives.

If you think for a moment about what helps create a safe delivery in this country, you will understand what's missing in developing countries. In the United States, couples have ready access to family planning education and products, and, for those with insurance, prenatal care is available. Whether insured or not, women have access to emergency obstetric care to help ensure a safe delivery even when there are complications. In many parts of the developing world, access to family planning, prenatal care and emergency obstetric care is uneven at best, and too often is unavailable.

Three key practical solutions that can help save women's lives:

First, provide access to comprehensive reproductive health services. There are more than 200 million women with an unmet need for effective contraception. An estimated 90 percent of deaths from unsafe abortions and 20 percent of obstetric deaths could be averted by access to birth control.

Second, provide equal access to education for women and girls. Female education is strongly correlated with healthier women, healthier children and higher household income. It is important, too, that women and girls have life options beyond childbearing. Education is positively associated with delayed childbearing, which can improve birth outcomes; girls under 15 die in childbirth five times more often than women in their 20s.

Third, provide access to skilled midwives, nurses and doctors. Many of the women who die during labor do so in hospitals, but often they arrive too late to be saved or the hospital is ill-equipped to save them. There is a shortage of trained medical personnel at the village, city, regional and national level in most developing countries. Indeed, on a global scale there is a shortage of 4 million health workers that is most severe in rural areas of developing countries.

Unlike some diseases for which we still are in search of a cure, we know what can save the lives of mothers and would-be mothers - access to birth control, the ability to make wise choices about their reproductive lives and access to medical assistance to make safe pregnancy and delivery possible. All that is needed is the political will and financial investments to make these policies a global reality.

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We need to create the political will necessary to save the lives of women around the world.

New Slide Show on Website "From Despair to Dignity"

The Foundation is fortunate to have several artists who have been inspired to share their talents and energies to helping treat and prevent obstetric fistula. One of those artists is Yanina Manolova, a talented photographer. She has developed a moving series of photographs that documents the journey of fistula patients from despair to dignity at the Fistula Hospital in Ethiopia. Yanina has set these compelling images to music written specifically to increase awareness of fistula treatment and prevention. We encourage to visit the home page of our website at www.fistulafoundation.org where you can easily view Yanina's masterly work.

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Foundation Welcomes New Board Members

The Foundation depends on the talents, wisdom and expertise of its volunteer Board of Directors. The Board contains a group of talented individuals who are leaders in their chosen fields - medicine, public health, law, investment and finance, and nonprofit governance. We are delighted to add two new Board members, C. Stephen Saunders and Linda M. Tripp.

Steve Saunders is a trusts and estates lawyer who specializes in charitable planning. He and his wife Pat, who is Australian, live in Austin, Texas where both of them have been active in civic and charitable matters. Steve has served on the Boards of the Austin Community Foundation (and was President in 2006), his parents' family foundation, and several other organizations based in Austin. He is a graduate of the University of Texas at Austin and serves on the University's Development Board and the Gift Planning Advisory Council. He is a frequent speaker at State Bar of Texas seminars and has done public interest work in the Texas Legislature. Steve summarized why he joined the Foundation Board. "Having learned of Dr. Hamlin and the Hospital from my friends at the Silverton Foundation in Austin I got to attend the meeting of all the International Partners in Addis Ababa in February, 2006. I met Dr. Hamlin and Ruth Kennedy, toured the Hospital, and met Kassy Kebede, Larry William, and Kate Grant. I was inspired by Dr. Hamlin and enormously impressed with the work of the Fistula Foundation and the people associated with it. I was flattered when asked to join the Board and immediately accepted the offer. I hope to assist the Foundation in any way I can in its work of preventing and treating fistula."

Linda M. Tripp recently retired from her position as Vice President of Public Affairs for World Vision in Canada. She was the first woman Vice President in the World Vision global partnership. In this capacity she represented World Vision Canada's Relief and Development work to the government, other aid organizations, and served on several coalitions and boards, including the Canadian Council for International Cooperation (CCIC). She chaired the Women's Commission that developed the first Gender Policy for the World Vision Partnership and continues to champion the cause of the women and the Girl Child. Linda started World Vision Canada's Development Education program, to increase donor and public awareness and understanding of poverty issues. She has traveled extensively, witnessing first hand the work on the ground, attending international and UN conferences and speaking to various publics across Canada. She was appointed Vice President of Advocacy and Government Relations in 1998. In 2003 she was named Vice President of Public Affairs providing oversight to Advocacy and Education, Public Relations, and Church Relations. She retired in January 2008 but continues to be passionate about alleviating poverty and suffering. Linda summarized her reasons for joining the Fistula Foundation Board: "When I first visited the hospital in 1985 I watched Drs. Catherine and Reginald Hamlin care for, love and touch the fistula patients - many of whom had not experienced tender human touch in months or years. Their compassion and love were a tangible example of what it means to be the hands and feet of Jesus, serving the poor. During my tenure at World Vision I was always an advocate for the hospital. When the opportunity to join the Fistula Foundation Board presented itself when I retired, I felt that God was giving me an opportunity to continue to be involved in a mission that brings healing and dignity to women. For me, it is a privilege to be able to continue to support the work in this way."

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IN THE NEWS

Dallas International School Raises funds through "Rite Race"

 

Second graders Elijah Rogers, Alice Mellon, Spencer Gray, Giovanni Barbosa,
Aloni Ray, Elodie Boccara and Avery Harle at Dallas International School
off to a good start of their Rite Race.

The Dallas International School holds a fundraising event for charity each spring called the "Rite Race". The "Rite" portion of the name comes from the Texas Scottish Rite Hospital for Children in Dallas which is a regular recipient of funds raised through the annual run. In addition, each year the School selects another worthy charity from a country they are honoring. This year, the country being honored was Ethiopia, and the charity chosen was the Fistula Foundation, supporting the Addis Ababa Fistula Hospital.

The Foundation was honored to be selected by the School to benefit from the annual "Rite Race" run. The Dallas International School is a K-12 school and the run involves all the children in the school. Each child gains pledges from the staff at the school to earn a donation for each lap they run. This year, the pledges benefiting the Foundation totaled $9,300! We are very, very grateful to the immense generosity of the staff of the Dallas International School and for the hearty efforts of each student at the School. We feel very fortunate to have the School in our extended family of supporters.

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"It is my aspiration that health will finally be seen not as a blessing to be wished for, but as a human right to be fought for."

Kofi Annan
former UN Secretary General

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