There are parties, and then there are parties.
On the Africa Mercy, no one does a party quite like Ward B.
You may remember that I’ve written before about VVF (vesico-vaginal fistula) – a childbirth injury sustained in regions where emergency obstetric care is unavailable. A very rough description would be that, often after several days of labor, women develop a hole in their birth canal that leaks urine. In short, these women need C-sections and when they can’t have them the damage leaves them incontinent, if not dead. They almost always lose the child they were carrying from the trauma of the birth. There are approximately 2 million women in sub-Saharan Africa and Asia who live with VVF, according to the WHO. Two million.
When you are incontinent, you smell. When you smell, people avoid you. In several days’ time, young women go from being expectant mothers to grieving, injured, and outcast. Over and over again I hear from these women that they have been left by their husbands, rejected by their communities. In all of my time in Africa, I’ve never been as moved as I’ve been by the plight of women with VVF. They have suffered in ways few of us will never understand. I think they must be made of God’s strongest fabric.
After obstetric surgery, our VVF patients stay on Ward B for several weeks recovering. Do you know what happens when you place a bunch of women who have suffered for years in solitude together in the setting of a great big sleepover? While they rejoice over the fact that they’ve just won the healthcare lottery and will receive free surgery that will change their lives forever? Can you imagine this? Well, I’ll tell you: it is a non-stop musical hen party. They braid hair, do crafts, and parade in the hallway singing. I walked in a few days ago to find that they had pushed their beds together. Seriously. Like in The Parent Trap. Then they redecorated the entire ward. If we don’t leave soon there will be a sorority house where the hospital used to be.
When these incredible women are ready to be discharged, we throw a hell of a party. We call it a Dress Ceremony. With full hearts and dry skirts, the patients sing and dance and celebrate their re-entry to society and the emotional restoration they have found through the care and counseling of our amazing medical staff. It’s the happy ending after a long road of suffering that began because they needed a doctor and didn’t have access to one.
This week, we celebrated the journeys of eight patients who no longer suffer with VVF.
It’s my great honor to introduce our debutantes, the Beauties of Ward B.
Thanks for reading.
Photography by Catherine Murphy
(+ nifty behind the scenes footage by Josh Callow)
Copyright Mercy Ships 2014
(+ nifty behind the scenes footage by Josh Callow)
Copyright Mercy Ships 2014
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