Fistula centre gets oxygen concentrator

 The Fistula Care Centre at Bwaila District Hospital in Lilongwe has received an oxygen concentrator, which will enhance its efforts in conducting surgeries for fistula patients.

Speaking on Monday when doctors from The Netherlands donated the equipment in collaboration with Rotary Club of Lilongwe-Lingadzi, Fistula Care Centre board chairperson Grace Chiudzu said they only had one oxygen concentrator.

“This is a timely donation which will help us to effectively help the women. We know that the Rotary Club had options to offer this donation to other facilities, but they chose us and we don’t take it for granted,” she said, adding that they have 40 patients at the centre, but the number is still increasing.

On her part, the club’s president Eveline Sibindi Van-Dam said the donation came from some doctors from The Netherlands they worked with before.

She said: “The Rotary Club of Lilongwe-Lingadzi has been working with the Fistula Care Centre for a while now and we support them in buying reusable sanitary pads.

“We donate these pads to girls in schools every year to motivate them to remain in school.”

The centre’s fistula surgeon and medical director Ennet Banda-Chipungu said the surgeries are performed four times a week, each day seeing three women regaining their dignity and not having to stay in isolation.

The medical director cited that the surgeries cost about $600-700 (about K600 000 to K700 000) per patient.

Currently, the money which caters for the surgical procedure and the patients’ stay at the hospital, including food, comes from external donors such as Freedom from Fistula Foundation and the United Nations Population Fund