On 29th July 2011 a Derby Hospitals midwife and a physiotherapist will begin a three day 50 mile walk from the Royal Derby Hospital to Birmingham Women’s Hospital. The walk will echo the lonely journey that many women in Ethiopia undertake to reach medical help to repair horrific injuries sustained during childbirth. The women have no medical help available in their villages and their babies are often stillborn.
In the UK we expect childbirth to be safe and a midwife to be present at every birth but in rural Ethiopia this is rarely the case. The Hamlin Fistula Hospital in Addis Ababa offers care and rehabilitation to women who have suffered birth trauma. A recent initiative to train local women to become midwives for rural areas offers hope for safer birth for mothers and babies.
My name is Louise Amandini and I am a physiotherapist at the London Road Community hospital. I’m supporting this walk for many reasons; the main one being an interest for better women’s health provision in Ethiopia, prevention of these horrific birthing injuries is vital and training midwives is what is needed. Having visited the Fistula hospital last year I was amazed at what these women go through often having been turned away from their communities due to incontinence issues. If midwives were on hand in local areas childbirth would be safer and there would be no need for the months of rehabilitation and pain these women can suffer.
My name is Anne Bramley and I am a community midwife in inner City Derby. Mothers in UK expect childbirth to be safe and receive care from a team of trained midwives throughout their pregnancy and early motherhood. I am walking to raise funds to train midwives at the Hamlin Fistula Hospital so that women in Ethiopia can expect safe birth and a healthy start to their babies’ lives.
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