Senegal Women's Platform for Peace in Casamance commits to eradicating obstetric fistula
Ziguinchor, Senegal (PANA) - The Women's Platform for Peace in Casamance, southern Senegal, with support from the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and the Ziguinchor Medical Region, has engaged in a battle against obstetric fistula.
This ambitious project will enable patients to have free care to eliminate this condition that causes women to lose their dignity and financial autonomy.
According to Khadidiatou Rassoul Guèye, the Platform's communication officer, the group, which is a provider of a UNFPA programme, will help in eradicating the condition.
"As part of the implementation of a UNFPA programme, called the Family and Adolescent Improvement Programme, in the southern regions of Senegal, the Platform is a provider of implementation of its activities."
These include support, or integrated care of victims of violence, through the Koulimaro centre, the implementation of obstetric fistula prevention and management, raising awareness and supporting women in the fight against harmful practices such as female genital mutilation.
"In this programme, there is this dimension, prevention and management of obstetric fistula that we are conducting, in collaboration with the Medical Region of Ziguinchor," Guèye said.
"This work we do on obstetric fistulas is to identify the female victims, to accompany and surgical repair."
She said obstetric fistula occurs at the time of delivery that causes abnormal connection between the three hollow spaces: the uterus, bladder or rectum.
And in the case of difficult deliveries or long-term delivery, there may be abnormal connection between the bladder and the uterus, in which case urine comes out through the rectum or uterus. And in this case, the stool comes out through the vagina, Guèye explained.
She notes that previously, patients had to travel to the capital, Dakar, for treatment. And to do that, they had to gather a certain number of female victims before sending them to the capital.
But now arrangements have been made, with the cooperation of the Medical Region, to deal with this issue at the hospital level in Ziguinchor, she said.
The persistence of practices such as female circumcision, armed conflict that has been tearing the region apart for decades, and which has, in some places, destroyed the social fabric and health system, and gender-based violence have seen the emergence of certain diseases that were previously not widespread in Casamance.
-0- PANA, MAD/TBM/BBA/MA 24Dec2019