![[ Skip Navigation ]](../images/ribbon.gif)
Project Highlights
Recent Activities
- Fistula Care Co-Hosts Meeting on Obstetric Fistula in the DRC
- Sierra Leone Launches Maternity Clinic at the Aberdeen Women's Center
- 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 June 2010, over 16,000 fistula repair surgeries have been supported by the Fistula Care Project with funding from USAID. Fistula Care currently works with partners in eleven countries in a total of 73 facilities. Of these, 34 hospitals provide fistula repair surgery.
Support for Training
Between 2005 and June 2010 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 128 surgeons in fistula repair. Over 100 surgeons received follow-up training and over 500 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.
