Hamlin Fistula Impact Report 2023

2023

Patients at the Addis Ababa Fistula Hospital, 2023. Photo: © Erico Hiller

Ending avoidable childbirth injury and changing women’s lives in Ethiopia hamlinfistulauk.org

Reflecting on a year of impact in Ethiopia This year has been a testament to what we can achieve when we come together with a shared purpose and I am filled with gratitude for the journey we’ve embarked on together. Thanks to you, our generous supporters, we have delivered our mission to provide life-changing maternal health services for thousands of women across Ethiopia.

Whether through making financial contributions, raising awareness of childbirth injuries in Ethiopia, or knitting blankets for our patients, your commitment has truly made a difference.

Your unwavering support has been the driving force behind our achievements. In this report I am proud to share the impact we’ve made in the fight against obstetric fistula and the tangible change we are bringing to the lives of women.

Behind every statistic and milestone, there are real stories of transformation. I am inspired by the courage and resilience of the women we serve, like Bekelu, pictured below, who I had the privilege of meeting when I visited Ethiopia in July.

Your continued support is crucial as we work towards ensuring every woman can deliver her baby safely and no woman lives with a debilitating childbirth injury. On behalf of everyone at Hamlin Fistula UK and Hamlin Fistula Ethiopia, we thank you for all you do for women in Ethiopia.

In 2023, thanks to the work of our partner Hamlin Fistula Ethiopia. . .

27,042

women received four ante-natal appointments

3,580

women received surgery for childbirth injuries

1,727

patients completed numeracy and literacy education

226

Thank you

women completed livelihoods training

Helen Marriott

CEO, Hamlin Fistula UK

After I came here I became hopeful. We miss nothing. Everything is full. We are receiving the utmost care. The doctors are committed to our cure. I plan to spread information about this hospital so more women like me would come for cure.

- Bekelu, pictured left.

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Hamlin Fistula UK

Taking action across Ethiopia Project Zero: the road map for a fistula-free Ethiopia 2023 saw the start of a brand new, ground-breaking initiative - Project Zero.

There are thousands of women suffering with untreated obstetric fistula injuries in rural areas of Ethiopia. We’ve made it our mission to bring this number down to zero.

Our vision is for every

Ethiopian woman to be free from devastating childbirth injuries and to gain access to quality maternal healthcare.

Project Zero uses a woreda-by-woreda (district by district) approach. Hamlintrained teams will work with local health bureaus and other stakeholders to visit every household in targeted woredas. Teams will find women living with childbirth injuries and organise treatment, alongside improving maternal healthcare services.

In 2023 we successfully completed a pilot in one woreda - carrying out 14,664 house-tohouse surveys. We identified seven women with decades-long fistula injuries and 56 women with advanced stage pelvic organ prolapse, who were successfully treated.

Using lessons learned from the pilot, and funds raised by UK supporters from our 2023 Big Give appeal and by international partners, Project Zero will be rolled out to another three woredas in 2024. This work will contribute to Ethiopia’s National Strategic Plan for the Elimination of Obstetric Fistula.

Fekade’s Story Fekade was the first woman identified to receive help for untreated fistula thanks to Project Zero’s door to door outreach in Oromia region.

Tragically Fekade had lived with a fistula for 35 years, following the birth of her daughter. In addition to this suffering, Fekade’s husband had left her, and devastatingly her daughter died at just five years old, leaving her alone.

It took Hamlin’s team of outreach workers two weeks to find Fekade, as due to her incontinence she was shunned by her local community.

Initially, after so many years of suffering Fekade was afraid to meet the Hamlin team.

She didn’t believe she could be cured and felt her illness was a punishment from God. The team counselled and comforted Fekade explaining how Hamlin could help and she agreed to come for treatment.

Soon after she was admitted to Metu Regional Fistula Hospital and provided with holistic care and successful fistula surgery, giving her hope for a new chapter in life.

Impact Report 2023

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Treatment Restoring health and hope across Ethiopia Hamlin Fistula Ethiopia’s nationwide healthcare network of over 550 Ethiopian staff operates six fistula hospitals, a rehabilitation centre and the Hamlin College of Midwives, as well as supporting over 80 rural government midwifery clinics.

The Addis Ababa Fistula Hospital has 120 beds, an operating theatre, physiotherapy department, urodynamic and stoma clinic, pharmacy and pathology service. Busy Hamlin Regional Fistula Hospitals are operating in Mekele and Bahir Dar in the north, Yirgalem in the south, Harar in the east and Metu in the southwest.

The impact of our treatment services Obstetric fistula and advanced pelvic organ prolapse can both mostly be repaired with a single life-changing surgery. For some, this can take no more than two and a half hours.

Over the past year, surgical teams at our six hospitals across Ethiopia have delivered an amazing 3,580 restorative operations for women with childbirth injures.

Surgeons operating at Hamlin’s Addis Ababa Fistula Hospital Photo © Erico Hiller

This is a significant increase on the previous year’s results and is testament to the hard work and dedication of our team in Ethiopia. It is also thanks to the growth of our surgical team, our community outreach work including Project Zero and through the re-opening of Mekele Hospital.

Rebuilding hope in northern Ethiopia Following the end of a bitter civil war in Tigray in northern Ethiopia at the end of 2022, we have supported our team at Mekele Fistula Hospital to gradually resume services. The hospital is bringing hope and healing to the heart of northern Ethiopia.

As the situation improved, we were able to send much needed medical supplies, funds and support for our team of staff in Mekele Fistula Hospital, led by Doctor Melaku Abriha. Services are now being delivered – however, the hospital faces an enormous back-log of patients who are in desperate need of treatment.

This included 874 surgeries for obstetric fistula, 2,277 surgeries for advanced pelvic organ prolapse, 73 caesarean sections for past fistula patients and 357 surgeries for other gynaecological conditions.

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Hamlin Fistula UK

Rehabilitation Photo cred

it: Mary F.

Calvert

Empowering women with life skills Childbirth injuries can leave women incontinent, humiliated and cut off from their communities. The physical and psychological impact can be devastating.

Beyond the treatment of physical injuries, our rehabilitation programme helps recovering patients reintegrate into their community – supporting them to rebuild self-belief and gaining the confidence to live independently.

Every woman treated at a Hamlin hospital is offered counselling, physiotherapy and basic literacy and numeracy lessons. In 2023, our adult education teachers supported 1,727 women to complete basic numeracy and literacy lessons. Patients were taught to identify letters and numbers so they could read and write their name, count numbers and complete simple sums.

Desta Mender Women that needed more support were referred to our specialist centre Desta Mender in Addis Ababa which offers twomonth residential rehabilitation and livelihood training.

Team Hamlin at Women Deliver conference The 2023 Women Deliver Conference took place in Rwanda and we were delighted Hamlin Fistula Ethiopia’s CEO Tesfaye Mamo and Dean of Hamlin College of Midwives, Konjit Kassahun were there championing women’s maternal health rights.

Speakers at this year’s conference included Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Malala Yousafzai and many other leading voices from around the globe. Tesfaye and Konjit met with leaders of organisations supporting women’s health to raise awareness of fistula and our life changing work to end avoidable childbirth injury in Ethiopia.

Advocacy is vital to Hamlin’s work. The conference’s insightful and inspiring conversations on how we can work together to achieve the health and rights of girls and women represent another step in the journey towards ending fistula.

In 2023, 225 women completed livelihoods training at Desta Mender in a range of skills from farming and pottery, to beekeeping, catering and business skills before being supported to re-integrate to their communities with £350 seed funding to start their own businesses.

Impact Report 2023

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Prevention Midwives saving lives Our prevention programme trains and deploys Hamlin midwives to rural health centres. We work closely with the Ethiopian Ministry of Health and are having a positive impact on improving maternal health services.

Over the past year, 124 students studied at the Hamlin College of Midwives in Addis Ababa, including 53 Masters degree students and 71 Bachelors degree students.

We were delighted to celebrate the graduation of twenty-two students from their BSc degrees.

Hareg (pictured below), a Hamlin midwife 2023 graduate, told us:

“Serving childbearing mothers is so important - for the mother, for her family, for the society, and for the country at large -because women are the backbone of our society.”

Providing quality maternal health services Practising Hamlin midwives based at 84 rural health centres across Ethiopia were supported by Hamlin Senior midwife mentors to provide rural women with quality family planning services and skilled healthcare during pregnancy and labour.

Our maternal health services include providing vital drugs and consumables and supporting 28,159 women to have a safe delivery.

Meet Dagmawit a Hamlin midwife in Southern Ethiopia Dagmawit, pictured above, graduated from the Hamlin College of Midwives and currently works in a rural health centre in Teticha in Sidama region. She is supported by the two Hamlin Midwife Mentors based at Yirgalem Regional Fistula Hospital.

Dagmawit delivers an average of 25 babies a week. Despite the many challenges of working in a remote setting, she believes that the exceptional training she received at the Hamlin College of Midwives has helped her succeed.

“My training at Hamlin was very good.

The community needs Hamlin midwives because we are equipped with the skills and knowledge to serve mothers.”

- Dagmawit

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Hamlin Fistula UK

A huge Thank You

The support of generous donors is what makes our work possible.

Thank you to everyone who has supported us, including individuals who organised fundraising events, took part in sports challenges, made monthly donations, or who pledged a gift in their will.

We also want to thank our volunteer knitters who made an amazing 2,000 blankets to give patients a warm welcome to our hospitals.

£782,431 raised through UK donations, legacies, grants and other income.*

*Please note: due to changing our financial year, this amount represents 15 months income

How your donations were spent in 2022-2023

Our key supporters: Patron Baroness Tessa Blackstone Trustees Greg Morris - Chair Libby Grundy MBE Hewete Haileselassie Sarah Hewitt-Clarkson Alison Murray Emnet Yadeta

Institutions Guernsey Overseas Aid and Development Commission Trusts and Foundations Band Aid Charitable Trust Bryan Guinness Charitable Trust Eleanor Rathbone Charitable Trust Ericson Trust Evan Cornish Foundation Hodge Foundation Kirby Laing Foundation Oakdale Trust Peter Stebbings Memorial Charity Reed Foundation Roughley Charitable Trust Stanley Grundy Foundation Sulney Fields Charitable Trust The Big Give Key supporters Manuela Stanga Midland Arden Region Soroptimists We would also like to thank all donors who wish to remain anonymous and our generous individual donors, friends and volunteers.

A gift of hope and healing For every £1 raised, 81p supported our programmes in Ethiopia

81% Childbirth injury treatment and prevention

Dr Catherine Hamlin’s vision was to eradicate obstetric fistula in Ethiopia. It is now up to us to finish what she started.

Can you offer a gift of hope and healing to future generations of Ethiopian women?

Leaving a gift in your Will is a thoughtful and easy way to continue your support.

It makes the wellbeing of Ethiopia’s most vulnerable women part of your life’s story.

10% Administration of charitable activities

For more information about leaving a gift in your Will, please visit

9% Raising Funds

hamlinfistulauk.org/wills

Impact Report 2022

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We care for and treat women with childbirth injuries at our six hospitals across Ethiopia. Each woman receives a handmade blanket upon arrival. By knitting for Hamlin, you’ll join a community of compassionate crafters inspired to help women.

Will you knit a blanket to support a woman on her journey back to health and happiness?

For more information, visit: Hamlinfistulauk.org/knit

Contact us @HamlinFistulaUK Email info@hamlinfistulauk.org

@hamlinfistula_uk

Phone 0121 559 3999

Web hamlinfistulauk.org

Hamlin Fistula UK is a registered Charity No. 1153053.

Registered as a Company limited by guarantee in England & Wales No. 08457433.

Registered office at 4 Parade Buildings, Nimmings Road, Halesowen, B62 9JJ.