April 6, 2020 Nestled along quiet gardens, and in the shadow of a mountain on the outskirts of Addis Ababa, are ten houses which each accommodate recovering obstetric fistula patients. Desta Mender is more than a home to...
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April 6, 2020 Dr Catherine Hamlin always maintained that it was essential to not only treat a fistula but to treat the patient as a whole; that is why she opened Desta Mender in 2002. Desta Mender is...
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April 6, 2020 In 1993, Dr Reg Hamlin died of cancer. After losing her husband, Dr Catherine Hamlin was faced with a hard decision: how to continue her work without Reg? The idea of treating thousands of obstetric...
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March 30, 2020 After establishing their hospital by the river, news of the Hamlins’ obstetric fistula treatment and the Addis Ababa Fistula Hospital quickly spread. Women were coming by foot from all over Ethiopia. Catherine and Reg’s Addis...
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March 30, 2020 Word spread of the incredible work Drs Reg and Catherine Hamlin were doing at the Princess Tsehai Memorial Hospital. To cater for the increasing number of obstetric fistula patients arriving at their doorstep, Catherine and...
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March 30, 2020 Throughout Dr Catherine Hamlin‘s 61 years in Ethiopia, two of her closest confidantes were Mamitu and Lete. These two remarkable women are former obstetric fistula sufferers who have dedicated their life after surgery to the...
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March 19, 2020 After accepting the call in the Lancet Journal and deciding to work in Ethiopia, Drs Reg and Catherine Hamlin had to quickly get to work navigating the maternal health landscape in mid-twentieth century Ethiopia. Their...
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March 18, 2020 Drs Reg and Catherine Hamlin knew that they needed to build a life together that was fulfilling and challenging. As experienced and forward-thinking obstetrician-gynaecologists, they had both experienced working in several overseas postings, yet when...
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March 18, 2020 Elinor ‘Catherine’ Nicholson was born in 1924 and raised in the Sydney suburb of Ryde, at The Hermitage, built by John Blaxland in 1842. One of six children of Elinor and Theodore Nicholson, she went...
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