Loise Kashutu Kalamo, 45, is a happy woman after going through, a successful surgery to treat a condition that has haunted her for the last 15 years. Loise, a mother of five has been suffering from fistula since 2008 when she delivered her fifth and last-born child.
“I delivered normally in hospital but I never thought I can be a victim of fistula having delivered children before,” remarks Loise.
I get to communicate with Loise through her daughter, Naomi Ngala, as she is not in a position to converse in Swahili. Loise is used to Giriama Language making it hard to express herself in either Swahili or English. Her daughter, fluent in Swahili and Giriama, is helping with translation.
According to Loise, the last 15 years have been hell on earth. Her activities have been limited around her homestead. She needs to be around her home to manage the condition. Before she got her fifth child, Loise would help her husband attend their farm. “When you deliver normally with no complications you can go back to your work without worries after three months but this was not the case this time. I realized that sometimes I would pass urine without my knowledge. I think doctors erroneously tampered with my bladder while helping me deliver my last born,” she explains.
She notes that fistula could only be termed as today’s leprosy. “It’s an embarrassing condition. You find yourself leaking of urine. You don’t open up about it because you will be shunned or isolated because of it,” she adds.
Loise says that it is heartbreaking that an act of love can result in an embarrassing condition crippling, a woman’s, life. Women who do develop fistula are left incontinent and often susceptible to social stigma and shame. “It’s unfortunate that a woman’s life can be stopped because of trying to bring another life into the world.”
Seeking treatment…
Although she tried to visit the dispensaries around her village they didn’t help much as doctors in centers lacked sufficient knowledge and resources to treat her. The hospitals that were able to offer proper medication were out of reach. “I tried to seek treatment but the hospitals I would afford didn’t have a specialist. I was not in a position to afford the hospitals I would be referred to. They were as well miles away from my residence and I didn’t have financial support,” explains Loise, a Kiliti resident in Marereni, Kilifi.
At the time she developed this condition all her children were young and no one was in a position to support her or even seek more information about the condition. Her husband also was not a man of means hence making it hard to treat the condition.
Naomi, a second-born child of Loise, realized all was not well with her mother while in high school. “I was distressed by mother’s condition but I couldn’t help. At the time I was at school with no money, and of course naive. Initially, I didn’t ask her about the condition but as time passed she opened up to me,” Naomi says sorrowfully.
When she cleared her high school education Naomi left home and went to look for greener pastures in Mombasa. She aimed to know how she could rescue her mum from the fistula quagmire. It was while in Mombasa she heard of the fistula camp sponsored by M-PESA Foundation, Royal Media Services and The Flying Doctors Society of Africa.
“The first person who came into my mind when I heard about it was my mother. I registered her and followed it up and luckily, she has been treated. We are very grateful she is now free of ridicule and rejection,” says Naomi.
Now Loise has received successful surgical treatment, and she returns home with newfound confidence. Her self-worth has been restored. She will go back and help her husband attend their farm. “My husband knew I was ailing but we don’t talk about it. It’s a shameful thing to talk about. I am happy I will join him in our farming business,” she says.
The Flying Doctors Society of Africa helps women whose bodies have been broken by childbirth, receive life-transforming surgery, and enable them to go back to life the condition had denied them. Fistula is a childbirth injury, caused by prolonged obstructed labor. It usually affects women after first birth, leaving them destitute often turning them into social outcasts.
The average cost of fistula treatment – including surgery, post-operative care and rehabilitation services at the main referral hospital, Kenyatta National Hospital (KNH) in Nairobi, which is prohibitive for many of those affected is about Kshs30,000. Sadly, most fistula patients are either unaware that treatment is available, or they cannot afford it.
