Project Highlights

Recent Activities

• Ten Providers Trained in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) on Counseling Women with Fistula
• Training Package Targets Fistula Prevention in Ethiopia
• Fistula Care Team Meets with Bangladesh’s Minister of Health and Family Welfare
• Launch of National Obstetric Fistula Strategy in Uganda
• In Guinea, A National Fistula Day (2012)
• In Uganda, Collaboration for the Partograph
• In Sierra Leone, A Multimedia Campaign and a Fistula Hotline
• Family Planning-Integrated Fistula Care Services
• Fistula Services Provided to 84 Women in Hoima, Uganda
• Fistula Care Guinea to Start Program for Women Permanently Disabled by Fistula
• To read more about earlier activities, please click here.
• To read past issues of our newsletter, please click here.

Fistula Repair

Between 2005 and December 2012, 29,621 fistula repair surgeries were supported with funding from USAID. Fistula Care currently works with partners in ten countries in a total of 78 facilities. Of these, 34 hospitals provide fistula repair surgery.

Support for Training

Between 2005 and September 2012 Fistula Care trained over 31,000 people in areas related to fistula prevention, fistula repair and advocacy for fistula care. Many of these people were community volunteers who learned about fistula, its prevention, and the availability of services. Fistula Care country programs have provided training for 222 surgeons in fistula repair. Over 1,737 nurses and other medical staff have received training in pre and post-operative care and fistula counseling, and over 2,174 health care workers have been trained in obstetric care. Please see here for detailed training information by country and here for fistula training resources.

Fistula Care Research

Fistula Care is carrying out research to help to answer some of the most pressing clinical research questions in the field of obstetric and traumatic fistula. For more information about the studies underway, please visit the research page.

Developing Resources

Fistula Care is introducing new tools, including counseling curriculums for clients suffering from obstetric and traumatic fistula, as well as a training curriculum developed in partnership with ECSA for nurses and midwives.  Fistula Care has also introduced many other resources, including supervision and monitoring tools for training and for service delivery, a knowledge assessment tool for trainees, data collection forms, and an online database for Fistula Care colleagues around the world.  A module in informed and voluntary decision-making, among other resources, are currently under development.

Preventing Fistula

Fistula Care focuses on four interventions to prevent new cases of fistula from occurring. These include family planning, the correct use of the partograph, immediate catheterization to prevent or treat small fistulas among women who experience obstructed labor, and strengthening cesarean section service delivery.