Seek early medical care. Women suffering from obstetric fistula told
The Northern Regional Director of the Department of Gender, Mr I.P.S. Zakaria-Saa, has encouraged women suffering from obstetric fistula to seek early medical care since its treatment is free.
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He said fistula was one of the factors causing the breakdown of marriages in parts of the country, pointing out that women should not feel shy to report cases of fistula to health facilities for treatment.
He explained that fistula was a health condition and not a disease, as seen by many uninformed persons who considered the condition as a disease or a curse from the gods.
Mr Zakaria-Saa was speaking on the effects of early marriages at a stakeholders’ workshop held at Bimbilla in the Nanumba North District in the Northern Region.
The programme, organised by the Centre for Initiative Against Human Trafficking (CIATH), a non-governmental Organisation (NGO), was on the theme: Campaign against child marriage."
Obstetric fistula
According to the Fistula Foundation, obstetric fistula, which is a hole between the vagina and rectum or bladder caused by prolonged obstructed labour, is the most devastating and serious of all childbirth injuries that leaves a woman unable to control urine or faeces or both.
For every woman that gets treatment, at least 50 do not, and according to the foundation, for the one million women in this world suffering from obstetric fistula, the Global Fistula Map reports that between 2010 and 2013, only 60,280 women received fistula-repair surgery, about 15,000 per year, on the average.
Mr Zakaria-Saa, however, expressed the worry that some women suffering from fistula were mostly discriminated against, rejected by family and relatives while their children were mocked at.
He said due to stigmatisation, women suffering from fistula often refused to report their conditions to health facilities.
Treatment
He explained that fistula was a treatable health condition and that families, particularly husbands, should support their wives to seek treatment.
"The United Nations Populations Fund (UNFPA) has rolled out a programme about five years ago that caters for the treatment of women suffering from fistula in the three regions in the north," Mr Zakaria-Saa stated.
Child marriage
The Executive Director of CIATH, Mr Abdulai Danaa, urged all stakeholders, especially teachers, politicians, opinion leaders and traditional authorities, to join hands in the fight against child marriage in northern Ghana and the country as a whole.
He said the menace of child marriage affected the education, health and socio-economic development of the victims.
The Nanumba North District Chief Executive (DCE), Alhaji Mohammed Ibn Abass, said ending child marriage was not about just enacting laws and regulations against the menace, but the ability of state institutions to enforce those laws.