Mamie

Mamie was a 25-year-old Muslim woman who had been suffering from an obstetric fistula for almost 13 years.

Like most women with a fistula, Mamie had been rejected by her community and her husband had left her due to her incontinence and smell of urine.

She was just another statistic living without hope.

But then she became a different kind of statistic. She became the 100th patient at the Aberdeen West African Fistula Centre (AWAFC) in Sierra Leone – and her life was transformed.

Living five hours from Freetown, Mamie had no chance of knowing about the AWAFC but thanks to the clinic’s dedication to reaching women up-country, Mamie was able to attend a screening close to home and she became one of 22 women accepted for surgery that day.

The clinic’s up-country screenings are successful because the clinic partners with NGOs local to the province that help advertise the screening and provide transportation for the women to and from surgery.

Before returning to her village and her family, Mamie said: “I will show them that I am healed and no longer leaking.  I will tell them of my joy.”

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