THERE is an urgent need for more advocacy to be carried out with a view to getting more commitment from every stakeholder in the society, to the plight of Vesico VaginalFistula(VVF) patients, even as the National Demographic Health Survey revealed that no fewer 12,000 women developed VVF every year in Nigeria. The condition, which occurs as a result of an abnormal hole between the bladder and vagina of a sufferer, characterised by continuous and uncontrollable leakage of urine, is common where ignorance and poverty are prevalent. Patients were mostly young girls of poor social economic background and women, who were experiencing child birth for the first time, adding that the condition also affected older and even elderly women, as well as uneducated women living in the society.
Most of patients often came from remote villages with deplorable roads, poor or even outright absence of health care facilities and numerous barriers to seeking health care.
90 per cent of VVF condition was caused by prolonged, unattended and obstructed labour, adding that harmful traditional practices, such as female genital mutilation (FGM), among others, had also been found to have caused the condition.
Contrary to the widely-held belief, that the condition is prevalent in the Northern part of the country, the surgeon stated that, VVF was prevalent both in the Northern and southern parts of Nigeria.
Research has proved that about 200, 000 Nigerian women are living with the Vesico-vaginal Fistula (VVF). Fistula had been identified as a major contributory factor to high maternal morbidity and mortality in the country. Experts are increasingly becoming worried about the growing prevalence of Vesico Vaginal Fistula (VVF) in Nigeria. They say that one of the characteristics of VVF is the continuous, involuntary discharge of urine into the vaginal vault after childbirth.Ironically, the