Tears of VVF patients Posted by News Updates on September 29, 2011 at 2:47am in Nigeria Crime News
Aisha... I am not going back to my husband
While 17-year-old Rashida Sani lies on her sick bed awaiting surgery, her husband is set to marry another wife. “He said he does not want me anymore because I have this disease,” the teenager says as she breaks down in tears.
Slim, dark and beautiful, Rashida is a man’s dream. But her predicament made some friends and family members, including her husband, to run away from her. The young, uneducated lady lies on her hospital bed with a catheter in her bladder from where her urine flows into a plastic bowl. The traumatised housewife says she hopes her surgery would be successful so that she can lead a normal life again.
There are about 25 VF patients in the ward where Rashida is admitted. Some of them are groaning in post-surgery pains.
“I had this problem in January this year when I went to the hospital for delivery of my baby,” Rashida says. The condition is known as Virginal Vesicular fistula, (VVF), and experts say one of the causes is prolonged labour.
Rashida says she never attended antenatal care while she was pregnant. She says life has suddenly become sorrowful for her since she was affected by the disease.
“I lost my baby and now my husband has abandoned me,” she laments. She says her joy waned after she lost the baby and discovered she had VVF.
“I could not stop the urine from flowing. It was a very embarrassing situation,” she says. “I was ashamed of coming out because I was wet all the time.”
Rashida’s mother took her to the Ningi General Hospital where free Fistula Repairs were given to women with VVF. The free treatment is being organised by USAID Fistula Care Project, Abuja.
“I have been here for some days and the doctors promised to treat me free of charge,” she informs.
One of the VVF patients, Aishatu Abdullahi is in a happy mood today. “I had a successful operation to repair my bladder and now I won’t be urinating uncontrollably again,” she tells Daily Sun.
Aishatu, 28, from Filin Shagari in Ganjuwa Local Government Area of Bauchi State, says her husband too abandoned her when she had the disease. “Now I ‘m all right and I ‘m not going back to him again,” the mother of three informs the reporter.
“My husband lives in Liman Katagum but I am going back to my parents at Filin Shagari. I had this problem six years ago when I was delivering my fourth child. The baby died and my husband started maltreating me. After some time, he left me and I went to my parents’ house. Now I won’t go back to him again because he left me when I needed him most. If I see another man I like, I will marry him.”
The condition is not limited to young women alone, as the experience of Elizabeth Ali, 55, shows.
Currently recuperating after a successful repair, Elizabeth, a mother of nine, developed VVF during her 10th delivery.
“I heard about the treatment on the radio and that was why I came. It was terrible. I used to farm and assist my husband and the children but I could not do anything again when I had VVF,” she said.
However, unlike Rashida and Aisahtu, Elizabeth says that her husband had been caring for her. “In fact, he is the one that brought me here,” she said.
Deputy Country Director of USAID Fistula Care Project, Dr. Isa Adamu discloses that 73 VVF patients have so far benefited from the free repair services in Bauchi State.
Adamu says that the repair services began in March this year, adding that the project is being supported by the state government.
He commends the state government which, he says donated the Ningi General
Hospital as a VVF Repair Centre, as well as training of staff, monitoring and supplying of consumables and providing free meals to the patients.
He disclosed that in order for more VVF patients to benefit from the free repair services, the USAID funded project has renovated two wards and a theatre at the Ningi General Hospital to accommodate more patients.
He says that with more support from the state government, the organisation is working towards making the treatment a routine one.
“What we are engaging in currently is mass repairs, but we are working towards making it a routine thing whereby the patients can come to the centre at anytime and receive treatment,” he said.
“We want to equip the centre to have more facilities for routine services for that to be possible. The government has promised to put things in place and the Fistula Care Project would continue to provide free repair services for more VVF patients in the state,” he said.
The Officer in charge of the Fistula Repair Services at Ningi General Hospital, Dr Mansur Mustapha Dada, said that the VVF patients are not like other patients.
“They need to stay for some weeks to heal after operation and repair. We are coping well but we need more doctors specialised in fistula repairs,” Dr Dada says.
He laments that the challenge of VVF patients is that most of them are poor and neglected.
“Most of them don’t even have money to transport themselves,” he notes.
Some of the surgeons who undertook the repairs on Rashida and the other VVF patients include an Egyptian reconstruction surgeon, Atif Ismail who says he is committed to the health of women with VVF.
“I appreciate the highly talented surgeons who have been very efficient and used a different approach from the one I used in Egypt and Central Africa and which is successful,” he says.
Another surgeon, Dr. Said Zaad, a former Commissioner for Health in
Zamfara State who participated in the repair says he understands the problems faced by VVF patients.
“The greatest challenge is that some of them have been operated on three, four, five occasions and they are coming back for another repair. That was the case in Ebonyi, Sokoto and Kano States. Another is the issue of location. Some of them come from very far places for the repair,” he says.
Bauchi State Commissioner for Health, Dr. Sani Mallami, says the government is planning a holistic approach to cater for VVF patients in the state.
He commends USAID Fistula Care Project for initiating the project through which succour has reached many traumatised VVF patients.
“It used to be a taboo to talk about VVF. But with development partners like these, policy and channels are being worked out to address the problem,” he asserts.
The commissioner discloses that the state government will build a N150 million VVF centre in the state which will accommodate patients in the north eastern part of the country.
“We have worked on their feeding at the Ningi General Hospital repair centre and drugs would also be given to the VVF patients free,” he assures.
He adds that government will take time to fashion out avenues to address the psycho-social needs of the VVF patients, most of whom are abandoned by family and friends.
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