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Cosmas Omegoh
A woman living in Ibadan, Oyo State, Mrs. Azzizat (not her real name) ended the year 2019 with joy and gladness, but it was not because she won a jackpot from one of the many lottery shops that now dot every street in Lagos and other major cities in Nigeria. Far from that.
Azzizat was simply happy for having been finally saved from the torment of vesicovaginal fistula, which is better known as VVF, the scourge silently destroying and dehumanising many women across the land.
Azzizat and some other women like her are now enjoying a new lease of life. To her, the road to relief and reprieve was a torturous one; she had had to walk the path strewn with shame and anguish over the years, no thanks to VVF. But she kept bearing her burden all alone with stoic patience.
Today, however, a fresh chapter has opened in herlife. Her story is now different, courtesy of the Christian Health Association of Nigeria (CHAN), Lagos State chapter, and foremost VVF surgeon, Dr. Sunday Lengmang, who is leading a multipronged attack on VVF across Nigeria and Africa in general.
To enjoy her new state of health, Azzizat had to travel all the way from Ibadan to Lagos, searching for a cure. Her determined efforts did not look significantly different from the Biblical woman with the issue of blood. Through faith, both of them found healing. That was their common denominator.
Looking at Azzizat, it was easy to see that her faith was sustained by a certain gust of energy springing from within her; she kept striving until she found a solution.
She now looks at those days of pain and shame, recalling having two straight surgeries at one of the foremost teaching hospitals to correct her condition. Sadly, they did not provide any solution. Her VVF condition persisted, and it kept defying and demeaning the spirited efforts of caregivers helping her. But she did not give up.
Then one day, the long-sought relief came. Between June 24 and 28, last year, CHAN, Lagos State, organised an outreach in collaboration with a VVF non-governmental organisation (NGO), with Lengmang as the lead consultant. It was an appointed time for some women suffering from VVF and both agencies came to the rescue by organising free surgeries to help women living with the condition to find help. The outreach was held at Hoarse Memorial Methodist Cathedral Hospital, Sabo, Yaba, Lagos. And, luckily, Azzizat was in attendance, along with some other women were. The beneficiaries were initially screened. There were a little above a dozen of them. But only a few, including Azzizat, were found to be living with VVF. And they got the right medical attention. Again, between December 2 and 7, 2019, similar outreach was held. Azzizat had returned to ensure that her condition had really been remedied. And it was indeed.
Speaking on the two outreaches, Dr. Abayomi Ogunbekun, CHAN chairman, Lagos State, said during the second stanza, the group had to spread the news of the free treatment far and wide.
“We had to spread the message through the media in order to create awareness. We made radio announcements as much as we could. We produced radio jingles, which were aired in one or two radio stations.
“On both occasions, we collaborated with the Lagos State Ministry of Health; we contacted various relevant local government agencies, Islamic groups and other stakeholders. We wanted some women who might be out there dying in silence to come forward and be treated. Gone are the days when we thought that VVF was a condition prevalent in a particular section of the country. A few women here in the South West are living with it and dying in silence.
“During the last outreach, some women were in attendance and they were screened. Those of them who were living with VVF were treated and they went home happy.”
Azzizat, who was excited on this occasion, said: “I’m very happy; I don’t know how to express my joy. I remain very grateful to the doctors and God who used them to cure me.”
One of those helping hands was Lengmang. He is a fistula surgeon and advanced trainer for fistula in the country. He is also a senior lecturer in family medicine who, on a daily basis, sees what women, particularly in the northern part of the country, go through in the hands of VVF. He said coping with the conditional was herculean.
“The scourge of fistula is the worst maternal morbidity affecting women in the world. It is a complication in delivery worse than leprosy, which affects the poorest of the poor, typically women who are 15 years or below in their first deliveries. Often, they labour for three days and lose their babies in the course of that. And due to the complications that arise they begin to leak urine and even faeces and sometimes get paralysed. Sadly, too, in most instances, their husbands abandon them, same for their families and then the society. They cannot fend for themselves with their continuous deteriorating state of ill health, unless they have access to quality health care. In a worse scenario, there might be nothing that can be done to cure them.
“In Nigeria, the current VVF figure we are working with is 150,000 women awaiting surgery. Every year we have 12,000 fresh fistula developing in the country. That is really frightening, but when you compare the number of repairs in the country which stands at 3,000 annually, and you divide 150,000 by the rate of repair which is 3,000, you begin to get the feeling that it will take us about 50 years to stamp out fistula in the country only on the condition that we won’t experience fresh occurrences.”
Recalling how he and his team had been combating the scourge over the years, he said: “In Jos alone, we do an average of 450 surgeries a year. During outreaches, we do up to 150 cases yearly. Our entire facility in Jos does 450 surgeries yearly; put together, we carry out up to 600 VVF surgeries annually.
“I personally do between 350 and 450 surgeries yearly across the country. I also go around the world, Madagascar, Cameroon, Niger and other places, trying to assist a lot of women.
“Our agency is an offshoot of Evangel VVF Centre, a unit of Bingham University Teaching Hospital, Jos, Plateau State, which has existed for the past 29 years.
“We have been fighting this challenge in the country ever since. We act as a conduit between people who are willing to offer assistance and those who need the assistance.
“We write to agencies that are willing to assist – donor groups – and ask them to assist us in the work of saving women plagued by VVF. So, we look for the patients wherever they are and offer them our services free of charge. Our main donors are Fistula Foundation from California, USA and the Christopher Blinden Mission.”
