For 3 years I have operated at Kitovu Hospital with my great friends Mike Bishop and Jerry Putman on women made incontinent as a result of obstructed child birth. The baby's head makes a hole (fistula) into the bladder and sometimes the rectum. Often a Caesarean section is needed to deliver the by now dead baby and the woman is totally incontinent. To compound the misery these women are often outcast from home and their future is very difficult. Improved obstetric care in these small villages is the answer but the solution is a long way off.

The surgery is challenging and new for me as there is no counterpart in the UK. Often the defects can be closed but multiple operations may be needed. Sometimes the bladder cannot be reconstructed so the urine is diverted into the bowel. We see some children who have been born with an  abnormal urinary tract and incontinence for whom the prospects of success in life are severely compromised. Surgery for them has a high chance of success.

Dr Maura Lynch, of the MMM, has significantly developed the Fistula service with a ward and well equipped operating theatre with outstanding nursing staff. Maura in 2017 will have done 50 years in Africa organising and delivering all sorts of mainly surgical care. I don't think we can begin to understand the difficulties she has had to overcome. Your donation will be solely for the Fistula service at Kitovu and will pay for new and replacement equipment.

Pat is not climbing. She thinks its 'crackers' and she may be right.We have a 90% chance of summiting. Pat, while we are operating on fistulae, does day trips to outlying schools and orphanages extracting teeth. She goes to Uganda twice a year and works enormously hard so in March treated 460 patients ! Alice, Joe's wonderful girlfriend, was going to climb too but is unfit so will help Pat who has found some more teeth to pull! I'm very pleased that Joe is accompanying me, he will be a great moral and physical help. And great fun.

Our visits are entirely voluntary.

Your donation really will make a difference. 

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