Meet Agegnehush, age 25. Agegnehush married at the age of 15. Today, she has an 8-year-old boy, a 5-year-old daughter, and a
3-year-old daughter, all born at home.
When laboring with her fourth child in November 2009, she went to the health center after a day of labor, and the staff immediately referred her to a local public-sector hospital, because she was severely anemic.
The hospital could not perform an emergency cesarean section until the following day, because Agegnehush had anemia and first required a blood transfusion. The baby was born dead, and Agegnehush immediately began experiencing incontinence. The health provider advised her to eat well and drink lots of fluids and sent her back home. Her family tried to get her care afterwards, but they had limited income and had already paid for her transport the hospital, the medication costs, and her cesarean section.
Due to her condition, Agegnehush began to isolate herself from social gatherings because of shame from her smell. Her husband has been very supportive, and her family sold some of their crop so they could get her to the health center. Fortunately, the health center staff had received training from the Fistula Care project and called a Fistula Care mentor to pick her up and bring her to the Sekota pre-repair unit, where she will eat well and physically and mentally prepare for fistula repair surgery.