环球英语 — 428：Fistula: Sharing the Knowledge
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Hello and welcome to Spotlight. I'm Ruby Jones.
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And I'm Mike Procter. Spotlight uses a special English method of broadcasting. It is easier for people to understand, no matter where in the world they live.
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Today's Spotlight is on the power of shared knowledge. We hear about a project that helps common people to tell their stories. It is giving a voice to stories that no one usually hears. Yet sometimes these stories contain important truth. They may contain information that could help other people. We will tell of how a group of women shared their stories. Their experience told other women how to get rid of an unpleasant health condition.
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CDS is an organisation that collects people's stories. CDS stands for the Centre for Digital Storytelling. The ‘digital' part means that CDS stores the stories on computers. It then makes the stories available to everyone.
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One of CDS's projects is called Silence Speaks. There are some subjects that people do not like to talk about. One example is women's health problems. So people remain silent. But ‘Silence Speaks' helps them to speak about such problems. For example, Silence Speaks worked with two health groups in Uganda - The Acquire project and St. Joseph's hospital. Together, they helped a group of women who have suffered with a medical condition called obstetric fistula. The women learned how to create stories on the computer! We will hear one of their stories later in the programme. But first, here is some information about obstetric fistula:
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Obstetric fistula is a medical condition that can affect women after giving birth. The condition can be prevented or cured. Yet it often affects women in situations where health care is lacking. A fistula is a hole. An obstetric fistula is a hole that lets body waste leak into the vagina, her birth passage. A woman may develop an obstetric fistula when her body is too small to give birth without help. She can be in labour for many days. And this puts great pressure on her small body. In such cases, without medical care, both the mother and the baby could die. If the mother survives, she may well develop a fistula. The fistula causes body fluids to leak from the woman's body. She does not have time to get to a toilet. The fluids leak without her control. This causes the woman to smell. Fistulas cause much shame to women. And in many cases, husbands reject their wives.
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One of the main causes of fistula is when girls give birth at a young age. Betty Naluyima Walakira works for the Acquire health project in Uganda. She told about a health study:
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‘The study said that girls have to marry around the age of sixteen and a half. Most girls of that age are not fully developed to give birth. And many of these girls live in country areas.'
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The World Health Organisation explained another related cause of fistula. There is often a need to ease the baby out of the mother's body. So, unskilled birth attendants sometimes cut the mother before or during labour. They use sharp instruments such as knives or broken glass. This damages the woman. In parts of Africa around fifteen percent of fistulas are caused this way.
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Many women live with fistula for the rest of their lives. They live in shame, trying to hide their condition. They do not know that there is a cure for it! But treatment can fix the hole and to give the woman a normal and full life again.
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The Silence Speaks project worked with St Joseph's hospital in Uganda. The hospital provided a safe place for women with fistula to tell their stories - and CDS recorded them. The women also drew pictures to help tell their stories. The result was a series of short films. People can watch these films on the Internet. From these stories, other women can learn that they do not have to live with fistula forever. They can get treatment.
Here is Frederise's story. Frederise lives in an area in, Central Uganda.
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‘I got pregnant in 1990. When the time came to give birth I pushed for two days. The birth attendant told me I had failed to push the baby out. She sent me to the big hospital. Doctors operated - but the baby was already dead. In the hospital they put a tube in me. When the tube came out, I started leaking urine. Body fluids were just coming out freely. After two months in the hospital I could go home. But the body fluid continued to come out freely.
‘When I went back to my husband, he did not know what had happened. But he saw that whenever I sat down, it was wet where urine had come out. I decided to separate our beds because of my leaking. My husband started tearing up small pieces of blankets so I could try and stop the urine leaking. He tried to get me some traditional medicine. But it failed to work. I tried my best to hide the problem.
‘People used to tell me of different hospitals where I could get help for this problem. But I could not believe that I could be cured. Finally, I agreed to go to the hospital. And the operation was successful! Women should not get frightened. I lived with this problem for fifteen years. But now I am okay. I thank God. He alone does all things.'
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The World Health Organisation estimates that more than two million young women live with untreated obstetric fistula. The majority of these women live in parts of sub-Saharan Africa and Asia. The group also says that no one should have to live with the condition at all. Projects like Silence Speaks are encouraging women to share their stories. It is not easy for women to do this. But in sharing their stories, they can change their lives and the lives of other women in the future. Knowledge sharing could stop any woman having to suffer with fistula again.
