By Rawlings Otieno
Maureen Auma has borne the brunt of being deserted by friends and embarrassed due to a rare and humiliating condition she suffers from. She is unable to control the flow of urine because she is suffering from Vesco-Vaginal Fistula (VVF).
This is a medical condition where there is an abnormal communication or connection between the urinary bladder and the vagina making the individual suffering the condition unable to control the flow of urine.
Auma 17, got pregnant in 2008 at the age of 13 when she was in Standard Eight, but when the time for delivery came, she visited a traditional birth attendant in Rachuonyo.
In the process of delivery, she lost her baby and was rushed to Gendia Mission Hospital in Rachuonyo District where she was found to be suffering from Fistula. She was then given a ‘catheter’ (tube) to release urine.
Delivery time
“When the time for delivery came, I went to deliver back in the village in Rachuonyo and was attended to by a traditional birth attendant. I lost the baby in the process because the child was big and could not pass through the normal way. When I was discharged, I started releasing urine uncontrollably,” recalls Auma.
She says she has visited several medical centres seeking to treat her condition but all has been unsuccessful.
She says the condition has caused her shame, embarrassment and even discomfort among her peers.
But when she learnt of a free medical camp in Nairobi to repair VVF, she came running.
Auma is not alone in this. Rebecca Njoki who hails from Ruiru, Kiambu County has survived with the condition for the last 13 years.
Njoki, now a mother of two, says she got the condition when she lost her first baby through a miscarriage in 1999. She has since visited many hospitals looking for cure for her problem, but she has not been successful.
The 28-year-old mother adds that any time she runs or slides, the urine flows uncontrollably down her legs. So embarrassing is the condition that she has not been attending church service or interacting with her peers freely.
Luck at the door
“I have been with this condition for the last 13 years and the experience has been very embarrassing. I thought that this was witchcraft until I was told it is a medical condition that can be treated,” she says.
But when her condition was diagnosed at Embu Mission Hospital, Njoki has had hope that one day it will be treated. Since then, she has been looking for the opportunity for the surgical operation.
Luck came calling when she heard that the African Medical Research Foundation (AMREF) in collaboration with Kenyatta National Hospital (KNH), Freedom From Fistula Foundation (4Fs), Flying Doctors Society of Africa (FDSA) and the University of Nairobi were conducting free operation to help those who have been suffering from the condition. She is among about 500 targeted beneficiaries.
VVF is closely associated with Recto-Vaginal Fistula (RVF), an abnormal communication between the rectum and the vagina resulting to leakage of stool making the patients smell urine and stool all the time.
Obstructed labour
According to Reproductive Health and VVF specialist with the AMREF, Dr Khisa Wakasiaka, the condition mostly affects poor women and girls who cannot afford skilled supervised health facility delivery.
Khisa says that over 90 per cent of VVF cases are caused by prolonged obstructed labour while ten per cent of the cases are caused by complications during surgery, tumour of the cervix, radiation, trauma or other infections.
He notes that a woman with the condition loses the ability to control the urinary bladder resulting in constant leakage of urine and in some cases stool.
Vesco-Vaginal Fistula causes women to suffer from other related and painful medical conditions such as nerve injuries, cancer or cervix damage.
Young women
Dr Khisa says the condition mainly affects women between the ages of 15-23, who get pregnant while still young. For some of them, during delivery the baby may be too big to pass through the cervix damaging the tissues thus breaking the communication between the urinary bladder and the vagina.
He adds that the tissues of the vagina walls are destroyed when a woman pushes the baby during delivery to force the baby through a narrow exit.
This, he says, always leads to a lot of deaths especially to the infants.