Physicians for Peace

Women helping women: Physicians for Peace volunteers with patients at Segou Hospital.

Laura Gwathmey and Laura Fine-Morrison are traveling with our VVF surgery team on the ground now in Segou, Mali. Here is their latest report, which shares their observations of both the patients and the staff they have encountered at Segou Hospital: 


Our work here in Mali makes us realize how lucky we are to live in a country that allows women equal status. Here, women have little control over their lives. Most of the patients we've encountered have scarring from female genital mutilation. One member of our team, the only female doctor on staff at the hospital, told us the story of her own experience with FGM. As a child, she was subjected to the practice, and decided very quickly that she would not want her own child to suffer as she did. Unfortunately, the Malian custom is that the husband's family gets to decide the fate of a female child, not the parents. Despite our team member's best efforts, her husband's mother decided that the practice would be contined with her grandchild, our teammate's daughter, at the age of 2. In reality, our teammate told us, she could accept it only knowing that uncircumcised girls, as they are known in Mali, never get the opportunity to marry or have a family. The choice is stark: genital mutiliation or a solitary life. 

 

We're here hoping to change that through our actions. Many of the patients we've seen require hysterectomies because of their extensive and prolongued conditions. Those for whom we recommended treatment all told us that they must ask their husbands before they can consent, and their husbands must sign the consent form, not the women themselves. As I write, one man is traveling to Segou to give consent for his brother's wife to receive a hysterectomy. As you can imagine, many husbands do not give consent, and their wives must live with an incomplete solution to their conditions. Through the actions of our all-women surgical team, working with local Malians, we hope to show that women can still be desirable and feminine while actively serving as role models.

- Laura Gwathmey
 

My experience of the hospital staff is that they care very much about their patients. The nurses and doctors joke around with them when appropriate, to put them at ease. A nurse or anesthesiologist will talk gently with a patient, and may touch her on the shoulder or arm if they see that she is nervous during surgery (in most cases the patients are not under general anesthesia.) And they work hard to educate patients about their treatment options as well as how to care for themselves post-operatively. 

 

How hard it must be for the staff, then, to have to work under conditions that often don’t allow them to provide their patients with very good care. The patients come in malnourished and often lack funds for food and medications post-operatively, including pain meds and antibiotics. The staff are tired, as they get very little time off  (doctors, for example, work 7 days a week; nurses work 5 days per week but are on call every 3rd night, which they must spend at the hospital). And the staff are well aware that what is available medically in other parts of the world is far greater than what doctors can offer here.

 

One doctor came over to me in the hospital break room while I was writing. He sat down next to me and asked what I was writing. When I told him, he said that what I wrote was very true. 

And he said things are going to get better. How did he know, I asked him. His response was that one has to be optimistic in life. Things will get better, he repeated, before walking out to attend to his next patient.

 

- Laura Fine-Morrison
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In May 2009, Physicians for Peace sent a team to Segou, Mali (Read about the first mission to Mali.) to help with efforts to address the widespread problem of VVF. (Read more about VVF and our surgery program.) Last week, Physicians for Peace volunteers returned to Segou to help more women get the surgery they need to heal this devastating condition. 

You can help mothers in poverty by supporting our volunteer medical missions in Africa. Donate now or visit www.physiciansforpeace.org to find out how to make a medical donation to our gifts in kind program.