Fistula Care Plus

EngenderHealth implements the Fistula Care Plus project, the largest US government-funded effort to date to focus on treatment and prevention of fistula. With support from the US Agency for International Development (USAID), Fistula Care Plus conducts a full range of efforts to restore the dignity of women suffering from fistula and to address the causes of obstetric fistula so that new cases may be prevented.

Dr. Angela Namala speaks with a fistula patient during her rounds at Jinja Regional Referral Hospital.Photo: ©Frank Baguma

Fistula Care Plus collaborates with a host of international and national partners. Key global partners include the Population Council, Dimagi, Direct Relief International, the Fistula Foundation, the Maternal Health Task Force, and The Association for the Rehabilitation and Re-orientation of Women for Development (TERREWODE).

The objectives of the Fistula Care Plus project are to achieve:

• A strengthened enabling environment to institutionalize fistula prevention, treatment, and reintegration in the public and private sectors.
• Enhance community understanding and practices to prevent fistula, improve access to fistula treatment, reduce stigma, and support the reintegration of women and girls with fistula.
• Reduce transportation, communications, and financial barriers to accessing preventive care, detection, treatment, and reintegration support.
• Strengthen provider and health facility capacity to provide and sustain quality services for fistula prevention, detection, and treatment.
• Strengthen evidence base for approaches to improve fistula care and scaled-up application of standard monitoring and evaluation indicators for prevention and treatment.

Fistula Care Plus builds on, enhances, and expands the work undertaken by the previous Fistula Care project (2007-2013). Through Fistula Care, EngenderHealth worked alongside its partners and local and national governments to support more than 26,000 fistula repair surgeries in 14 countries and trained 22,000 surgeons, nurses, and community health workers to prevent and treat fistula. The project also helped support policy changes that tackled root causes of fistula, including lack of access to family planning and poor access to emergency obstetric care.

Success Stories 

Press 1 for Yes, 2 for No: How digital health platforms connect women to maternal health services 

Fistula Care Plus in Uganda: Success Stories 

Five Years of Fistula Care Plus: Looking Back at Key Achievements and the Way Forward to End Fistula 

As Free as a Bird 

Reports 

The Landscape of Cesarean Section in Sub-Saharan Africa and South and Southeast Asia 

Cesarean Section Safety and Quality in Low-Resource Settings: Report of a Technical Consultation 

Cesarean Section Technical Consultation