Women in Eldoret Town on Wednesday demonstrated in an effort to sensitize and bring awareness on fistula to the community.
According to the women who were led by the Director for Women Development against Distress in Africa (WDADA) Habiba Mohammed, women living with fistula are increasingly being stigmatized because the society doesn't understand their problem.
Pamela Naliaka, who lived with fistula for 16 years, narrated how hard life was living with the problem.
“It was so disheartening to see people who should be helping and encouraging you keeping a distance. Husbands also abandon their wives,” said Naliaka, who lived with fistula from 1992 to 2008.
Mohammed on her part said that lack of enough medical experts to treat fistula has also been a big problem, noting that out of every 3,000 cases of fistula reported annually only 500 are treated.
“Our capacity as a country to treat fistula is so low. We have only ten fistula doctors in the country so far,” she said.
She asked the government to consider training and hiring more fistula doctors while building the current capacity to handle more fistula cases.