The Girl With the Leaking Vagina
The story of the girl with the leaking vagina is not fiction, but a true life story.
The girl with the leaking vagina is not a delight to sight and you may never recognize her on the street, because she does not want to be recognized in the present state of her predicament. She wants to hide the stigma and trauma of her loathsome disease that has made her cruel husband to drive her away and to be ostracized by others who have made her an object of derision as they cringe, cover their noses and spit at the first sight of her. Nobody wants to sit, talk or walk with her on the street , except her beloved mother, the only one sharing the pains and tears of her heavy burden day and night. Her mother is the only helping her to clean and wash her smelling underwear and other clothes everyday and nurses the wound of her malodorous sore. The sore that is always oozing with pus and the nauseating odour wherever she goes and she has to be in sanitary towels 24 hours everyday and may have to do so for the rest of her miserable life on earth. This disease has left her heart broken and hopeless as she goes about in the cloak of sadness, hanging her head in sorrow while her fortunate mates and others go about in the happiness of their good health and with heads raised in mirth. But the man, her cruel husband who inflicted this curse on her does not even care about her and has since taken a new young wife to replace her within weeks of driving her away from his home. No man wants to sleep with a girl passing out urine and faeces through her vagina. But this wicked man caused the cut in her vagina during the tormenting travail of premature labour as a result of her small pelvic. And she is not the only victim. They are legions, from the northern regions down to the southern states of Nigeria.
She joins other victims like her, exchanging consolations in the agonies of the lamentations of their malodorous disease. Each one of the over 700, 000 of them shares the same mirror of horror. But help is on the way as they receive the good news announced by the health centre.
Girls and women who need help on VVF care can dial the following phone numbers: 07033346418; 08033711116 and 08036492782.
She writes down the life saving information with glints in her brown eyes and her small brown lips part in a shy smile as she looks up at the noticeboard.
I thank God that there is hope for the girl with the leaking vagina.
Note:
As at the end of October, 2011, Nigeria had about 400,000 – 800,000 women living with Vestico Vaginal Fistula (VVF), with about 20,000 new cases occurring annually. 90 per cent of these have remained largely untreated. The above figures ironically place Nigeria highest on the VVF prevalence ladder in the world. Lamenting the high prevalence of the disease in the country, the first lady of Gombe State, Hajiya Adama Dankwambo recently took practical steps toward curbing the scourge in the state.
Vesico Vaginal Fistula (VVF) or Recto vaginal fistula (RVF) are holes resulting from the breakdown in the tissue between the vaginal wall and the bladder or rectum caused by unrelieved obstructed labour. Over the years, Gombe state has remained one of the states in the federation where the number of women living with VVF is high, especially in the rural areas where majority of the infected persons are indigent and cannot afford medical treatment.
Women with VVF have overtime been treated like outcasts by society especially in the rural areas due to the nature of their condition which gives off a foul-smelling vaginal discharge.
http://www.leadership.ng/nga/articles/21517/2012/04/08/succour_vvf_patients_gombe.html?quicktabs_2=0
~ By Ekenyerengozi Michael Chima, author of Children of Heaven, Scarlet Tears of London, Bye, Bye Mugabe, In the House of Dogs and other books.
© 2012. Nigerians Report. International Digital Post Network Limited, Lagos, Nigeria. All Rights Reserved. No part of this report should be used in any format of media without the permission of the authorized copyright owner.
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