During July and August this year our Obstetric Fistula Program, led by Petra Jobse, conducted Prevention and Awareness Training about Obstetric Fistula in all 10 municipalities of Benguela Province. The objective of the training is to teach government health staff (mostly nurses) from the majority of health posts about the causes of obstetric fistula, the consequences of obstetric fistula (physical, socio-economic and psychological), how to prevent it, and how to identify and refer patients for treatment. We are extremely grateful to Fistula Foundation, Hope for Our Sisters, and Spiritan priest Fr Edward Flynn for their financial support making this training possible.
Benguela is the 3rd most populous province in Angola, with a total population of more than 3 million people. Petra and the team covered roughly 2,828 kilometres (in the trusty blue Hilux) to organise and deliver this training to a total of 351 participants from 178 different health posts in 13 separate training sessions. Of the 351 trainees, 217 volunteered to conduct awareness raising sessions at their health posts/in the community and received an Information, Education and Communication package filled with A3 images. These IEC packages are fully funded by Fistula Foundation. We know from experience that when information is connected with an image, that information is more readily retained.
We hope that through this training we can help to prevent some obstetric fistulas from occurring, and allow the message of hope to reach the women who are living with this injury in shame and despair. Awareness training is not enough to prevent obstetric fistula, but it is a start. Together with the Outreach team from CEML, funded by Hope for Our Sisters, we have now managed to train government health staff from all municipalities in Bie, Benguela, Huambo, and Huila provinces! The CEML team have also begun training in Namibe and Cunene provinces.
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