News Archive - September 2005

From Dr Catherine Hamlin AC

My dear Australian Friends,

I am thankful to be writing this letter once again from our Hospital having returned to Ethiopia on September 4th and feeling much better in every way!

Just to be here again is a tonic in itself - although it was a sadness leaving my family in England.

Dr Andrew Browning
A great deal seems to have happened in the few months I have been back. Perhaps the most exciting news is that Stephanie and Andrew Browning have now got a baby boy, William Andrew James, to add to their happiness!

William was born on 12th October 2005. We look forward to their return soon.

Then we have had the usual influx of new patients once "the rains" finished in mid-September.

Political Unrest
Recently, there has been some political upheaval, which has now fortunately subsided, but left some inhabitants of this large city in sorrow, through imprisonments and deaths. We are thankful to have peace again in the city streets, and hope and pray that differences can be settled amicably. We were never in any danger here at the Hospital and thankful that our drivers were kept safe as they collected staff and took them home.

Now more patients are again arriving from the Provinces and also the cured ones are able to get home. Twenty left last week. During the last few days of this unsettled time, Professor Gordon Williams arrived from the UK. We all admire him for this. So many tourists and others were leaving! He spent a week operating here, on those patients needing his special expertise and urological skills to cure them, and to at least give them a quality of life, even if that life is spent mostly at our village at Desta Mender.

Desta Mender
As you know we built this Rural Village to provide safe accommodation for patients who cannot be completely cured and require ongoing medical care. In the last twelve months there has been an average of 41 patients there. We have many plans for increasing the number of "residents" at Desta Mender and to try and make them more independent, and not feel they are still patients!

Mr. Mark Bennett our CEO is particularly interested in this concept and already has made a difference to the morale and whole mood of this lovely place. He was out there last weekend and came back with glowing accounts of how lovely it all looked with the lawns so green and the gardens so beautiful. Even the apple trees, which were planted a few years ago, are now showing signs of healthy growth, with the extra attention that they have been given. On the mountain behind our Village we have planted more than 2500 trees and they are doing well, preventing soil erosion which can be a serious problem in Ethiopia where many areas are completely deforested as people use them for fuel. There are 3 new calves at the Village so our milk supply is abundant. Some of our girls are even making their local cheese!

We have acquired an extra section of land adjoining Desta Mender. It was given to us when the village next door was evacuated. It is on this land that we are planning and starting to build some new houses for our staff - particularly for our three permanently employed men who are working there and all now have wives and children!

Mr. Ridley Smith was here in late October and he went out to supervise the planning and to advise on construction - so that soon we shall have better homes for these faithful workers.

Visit by our Honorary Architect from Australia to the Mekelle Centre
While Mr. Ridley Smith was here, he travelled with our Ethiopian Architect, Yoseph Bereded to see the progress of the Mekelle Fistula Centre and was pleased with all he saw.

In his Report he wrote: "The building is being completed to a high standard. The quality of the local ginger-coloured stonework is outstanding. Finishing trades such as windows, doors, tiling and painting are nearing completion and are very satisfactory. I am pleased with the overall standard achieved and the financial control of building costs. I feel confident the opening in February will go well."

The construction work on the building will be finished mid-December. The equipment and furniture has been ordered and paid for from Australia and we are looking forward to the Official Opening in February

Ridley went to see the Bahr Dar Fistula Centre, which encouraged the staff there.

We did enjoy his visit, as his optimism and enthusiasm is such a tonic!

Improvements to the Addis Ababa Hospital
Ridley also expressed great amazement at how the new area of our Addis Ababa Hospital, on the extra land has been developed since his last visit.

There is our the new 30 bed ward, the Oprah Centre, the store-room for the Outreach Centres, the extra staff residences, and the car park area. They are all looking attractive with lawns and gardens around them thus adding to the peace and tranquillity and happiness of our patients who occupy the big main ward, or come daily to the clinics housed in the Oprah Centre.

We are so grateful to many Australians who have helped us to develop and build on this land. This extra land was given to us through the generosity of our Ethiopian Government. A secure boundary fence has just been built near the river at the bottom of this sloping land, enclosing an area of bush where we plan to grow indigenous trees. Even as I write there is a native wattle tree in bloom, with pale yellow blossom to remind me of Australia!

Mobile Outreach Teams
This morning at 6 o'clock Dr. Ambaye set off with one of our drivers for Metu Regional hospital. Mamite and another well-trained theatre nursing aide was with her. She also took Ajabush, one of our long-term patients, whose family live in a nearby village. Ajabush can spend time with her family and then be picked up by the car on its return journey. You will have read about this tragic patient in a previous letter. She is now a new girl living a happy life at Desta Mender!

Dr Ambaye has 41 patients waiting at Metu for surgery. We desperately need to build a new Metu Fistula Centre in that far distant South West area of Ethiopia as beds had to be made available for this influx of patients, on this special visit.

Dr. Haile Giorgis spent a week recently at our Bahr Dar Centre. He took one of our trainee fistula surgeons with him, Dr Haile Mariam, who is a promising young surgeon. Perhaps one day in the future he may work at Mekelle. They did 23 operations, and we have news that the patients are all well and soon going home.

Employment for former patients
You will see in this picture a group of pretty girls dressed up for a celebration. These are all our former patients who are now working as house mothers for children in an orphanage run by a Dutch nurse in the Tigreain town of Shire, which is near the Eritrean border. The nurse, Karin van den Bosch has built a "village" in Shire for these orphans on land donated by the local government. She is employing some of our ex-patients to look after small individual households of orphans - some still babies or toddlers! The happiness of these girls is evident from their faces, having lost their own babies and now having others to look after is providing joy and fulfilment in their lives.

I visited this "village" when it was being built and was impressed by Karin's vision and all she has accomplished with God's help and her own deep faith.

A story about a lovely young patient.
I want to share with you a story to go with the picture of this cured patient waiting to travel home to her distant village near Lalibela in the Province of Wollo. She arrived some months ago, young small and frightened and mal-nourished. After some weeks she was fit for surgery, but unfortunately this first operation failed - after which this poor girl became depressed and suicidal. It was so bad that she was admitted to a psychiatric hospital.

Later she was discharged and re-admitted to our hospital, where she spent several weeks mixing with others, sitting on the lawn, learning at school, and gaining her confidence and hope again. We then did a second repair, which was successful. In this picture you see a sweet girl wearing a "gold dress"! It is one she chose from a selection! Matron then found her a cardigan to match, with a gold thread through it! So her joy was complete. This she will keep for best, and for church! Every time she comes into the ward, she runs up to hug me and to express her joy and gratitude. Now she is just waiting for her aunt to arrive to take her home.

Surely this sweet girl, is a life worth saving!

Assistance from Norway
Very briefly I would like to tell you something of my trip to Norway, with Ruth Kennedy. This visit eventuated after a group came to our hospital from an organisation helping women throughout the world who have been abused. The group were touched by the plight of our patients and invited us to visit Norway. They paid our fares and arranged meetings and television interviews.

We even had an audience with the Crown Prince of Norway, Prince Haakon! who has given money for our Yirgalem Fistula Centre! We visited NORAD (the Norwegian Government's Overseas Aid Organisation) and thanked them for their help. We also visited the Norwegian Lutheran Mission - so our four days were very full and very enjoyable.

Again my heartfelt thanks to all my Australian friends - my gratitude for all you do for us is enormous and I pray that you will be richly blessed this Christmas when we celebrate the love of God for us.

With my love.

(Dr.) Catherine Hamlin