Project Highlights

Recent Activities

Fistula Care Holds Medical Monitoring Workshop
Fistula Care Promotes Family Planning Integration to Prevent Fistula in Rwanda
Fistula Care Begins Support to a Third Site in Rwanda
Fistula Care Launches Activities at Fourth Guinean Hospital
To read past project updates, please click here.

Fistula Repair

Between 2005 and December 2009, nearly 13,000 fistula repair surgeries have been done using USAID funding. Fistula Care currently works with partners in eleven countries in a total of 55 facilities. Of these, 30 hospitals provide fistula repair surgery.

Support for Training

Between 2005 and December 2009 the Fistula Care Project trained over 14,000 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 begun training for 126 surgeons in fistula repair. Over 100 surgeons received follow-up training and 495 nurses received training in pre- and postoperative 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 a training strategy, 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. The project is now working to finalize an obstetric fistula counseling curriculum, a nursing curriculum, and a module on counseling women who have experienced traumatic gynecologic fistula (a companion to the obstetric fistula counseling curriculum).

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.