NOFIC enlightens Ebonyi journalists on dangers of vesicovaginal fistula
Jacob Ogodo, Abakaliki
National Obstetrics Fistula Center, (NOFIC), Abakaliki, Ebonyi state capital, in collaboration with a consulting firm, Circles and Frames limited, on Monday held advocacy, sensitization and case identification activities for journalists in Ebonyi State.
Flagging off the event in Abakaliki, the Medical Director, NOFIC, Prof. Johnson Obunna, said the sensitization programme was organized to arm journalists in the state with information concerning the dangers of vesicovaginal fistula, so that they will enlighten the public properly.
He said major causes of fistula are ignorance, poverty, poor health seeking behavior and refusal to go for a cesarean section when circumstances call for it during labour, stating that for every one fistula patient, 15 women have died.
The MD, advised women to make sure they deliver in a standard hospital when they are pregnant.
He said, “The disease is more associated with the poor, though we have got some cases where even the educated ones have fistula, but it’s basically the poor. And we have kept quiet about it and that is why the Federal Government engaged a consultant to make noise about it, and the best people to create awareness about it are the journalists.
“The society has to be enlightened so that more women will avoid fistula. We sent a publication to US, and England on fistula, they turned it down because they don’t understand what were talking. They were saying how can this kind of a thing happen to a country. You go to medical textbooks except those ones written by indigenous people, you won’t see fistula in the content, they have forgotten what it was.
“A woman can go for delivery, the baby dies, and there is disruption of intact bladder and the rectum and now there is a connection between the bladder and the vagina and connection between the rectum and the vagina, thereby causing urine and faeces to be passing through the vagina. When this happens, the man abandons the wife because that has distorted one of the reasons he married the woman.”
He stated that NOFIC is now running maternal services in order to help women manage their delivery to avoid fistula.
Obunna said that fistula patients who have been repaired in the center will receive maternal services free of charge including child delivery, while those who have no recorded case of fistula are allowed to access maternal services at a very cheap rate.
“We did a small research work. We went round the facilities in Ebonyi to know how they charge to deliver and we made our own the least for those who don’t have fistula.
“I can assure you delivery here is the cheapest in the whole of Ebonyi state. By April the center will be commissioned. We discovered that if a tap keeps on running and you do not close it, the tap will keep on running. That is why we said let’s start maternity services that will help these women to access free maternity services, including care for their newborn,” he added.
Director, Training, Research and Mobilization, Prof. Henry Urochukwu, appealed to media houses to enlighten the public on fistula instead of encouraging quackery and the consumption of unrefined products, that do not have a dosage, indication and damages the human system, adding that the media is the conscience of every society.
He was optimistic that if journalists play their role in enlightening the people, by giving them the right information, that the problem would be 50 percent solved.
“So many people have died after consuming these unrefined products, so many have caused themselves several damages, so many women can no longer deliver because because out of desperation they have taking these concoctions, he noted.
Prof. Urochukwu, said the center also screen for cervical and breast cancer, stating that the government should vaccinate women at the age of 15 against Human Papillomavirus.
He said the sexually transmitted disease can be in a woman’s body for 30 years with the carrier knowing, advising women who are sexually active to go for screening in order to detect and start managing it on time.
