She is also from Dadaab refugee camp with a long history of multiple traumas that she can barely handle. She delivered a still below the age of 20 and started leaking urine right way. The husband abandoned her and at 23years old, she suffered bomb injuries that saw her left leg amputated. She lost all her next of kin to war and lived alone until she came to the camp six years ago.

‘I still live alone, my husband remarried two women and has no business with me, and he despises me, me, due to physical and the incontinence’. Furthermore she became infertile and has never been able to get child. The last two issues are a source of devastation for her and she is barely coping. ‘I am so desperate to have the urine controlled, and have gone all the way to Nairobi-twice in vain.  I can’t work, have to beg for food’.

However, doctors report that her fistula is closed and that her problem is stress incontinence that may need long term intervention (physiotherapy) than surgery which she is not ready to accept. ‘I want surgery! She wails. ‘I have taken so much medicine; I have never met any serious doctor before this, so please heal me’. As many as 25% of patients repaired successfully continue leaking urine due to lax bladder muscles and required physiotherapy and sometime further surgery to attain some level of continence. Most of this however are resolved via consistent and appropriate physiotherapy.

Apart from the medical intervention, Khadija needed vigorous counselling session to enable her cope with her multiple post traumatic disorders.  Subsequent camps ought to bring on board a counsellor to deal with not only ordinary OF patients but also those from refugee camps who may be subjected to additional trauma from civil strife in Somalia.