The story of Meena Chaudhary, a 24-year-old Nepali who lived with fistula for five years before receiving treatment, is not uncommon in Nepal.
After obstructed labor, Meena developed fistula. Constantly leaking urine, she couldn’t step outside and was confined to a separate quarter in her own house in western Nepal’s Bardiya district. She didn’t know that she could be treated.
“Like Meena, thousands of women in Nepal, live with this condition,” reported Bibek Bhandari, a graduate student of Journalism at the University of Westminster, London, and correspondent for Republica, in Kathmandu. According to Bhandari, an estimated 200 to 400 cases of fistula are found every year in the country.
With support from UNFPA, the Women’s Rehabilitation Centre (WOREC) is providing treatment for women suffering from obstetric fistula in Nepal and spreading the word that this debilitating childbirth injury can be prevented by giving birth in a health centre with a skilled attendant, and by reducing the risks of developing the condition by avoiding early pregnancy and childbirth.
