The Hospital by the River

A Story of Hope

By: Catherine Hamlin, John Little

Narrated by: Kate Hood

Gynaecologists Catherine and Reg Hamlin left Australia in 1959 on a short contract to establish a midwifery school in Ethiopia. Almost 50 years later, Catherine is still there, running one of the most outstanding medical programs in the world. Through this work, thousands of women have been able to resume a normal existence after living as outcasts.

The Hamlins dedicated their lives to women suffering the catastrophic effects of obstructed labour - a problem easily dealt with in the developed world by assisted delivery or caesarean section, but disastrous without medical intervention. The awful injuries that such labour produces are called fistulae, and until the Hamlins began their work in Ethiopia, fistula sufferers were neglected and forgotten - a vast group of women facing a lifetime of incapacity and degradation.

©2010 Dr Catherine Hamlin (P)2010 Bolinda Publishing Pty Ltd

Critic reviews

"Dr Hamlin is the new Mother Teresa of our age." ( The New York Times)