Fistula surgeons repair 229 VVF patients in Gombe

 
The Evangel Surgical outreach, a Jos-based medical outreach, said it has conducted successful surgery for about 229 VVF patients from June to September 2019 in Gombe state.


The exercise, according to the Project Director, Evangel VVF Centre, Dr. Sunday Lengmang, was sponsored by the Christophel Blinded Mission.
The one week free surgery and treatment of patients with VVF in Gombe state ended on Sunday, with a call on the state government to initiate a plan that will strengthen sexual and reproductive in the state. 


In an interview with newsmen shortly after rounding up the programme in Gombe, the fistula surgeon said that from their findings, it was clear that there is still serious problems regarding sexual and reproductive health, especially obstetric fistula in the state. According to findings, in the course of the surgical outreach, several women suffering from obstetric fistula had labored for about 3 days before delivering or arriving at a hospital.


 “We tried to disaggregate the data gathered, we separated it into three to know for how long did they labored at home, how long did they labored on their way to a hospital and for how long did they labored in the hospital and we are seeing some frightening preliminary findings from that. “It revealed that our health system is in trouble that women are staying for too long in the hospitals before delivering,” Dr. Lengmang added. While lamenting the growing number of women with obstetric fistula in Gombe state, the fistula surgeon explained that the health system has something to contribute to it.


He said a woman in need of Caesarean Section (CS) that approaches a hospital should at least be able to have the CS within 30 minutes, saying if that lingers and she has labored for two or three days at home, wasted another day or some hours on the road by the time she comes to the hospital it will be obvious that she needs CS so she should not be allowed to stay for more than an hour. “But what we saw, was that people are left to stay laboring for a day or 2 that means that the health system has some problem that needs to be addressed so we will be able to help these women,” Lengmang said. 


 Dr. Sunday Lengmang also stressed the need for the state government to make some concerted effort toward providing rapid intervention funds to make sure that women with obstetric fistula are repaired to also expand the rate of repair in the state. 

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