Jackeline (not her real name) has undergone two unsuccessful fistula operations, awaits the third attempt with a glimpse of hope. | Photo: Joice Evans/Eye Radio.

24-year-old Jackeline (not her real name), a young woman suffering from fistula complications, awaits her third operation at Juba Teaching Hospital, hoping the attempt will save her from years of stigma.

Jackeline has lived with the condition for about ten years, after losing her baby in 2012.

She went through an excruciating labor at a remote village in Maridi County, a place devoid of modern maternity health service.

“I was pregnant, and my baby was removed by the midwife from the hospital, and my urinary tract damaged at that time since 2012,” he said.

She had her organ ruptured, after a midwife reportedly removed the baby wrongly due to a prolonged labor.

A fistula is an abnormal connection or passageway that connects two organs or vessels that do not usually connect.

Officials estimate that more than 60,000 South Sudanese women suffer from obstetric fistula, a preventable medical condition in which a hole develops between the birth canal and one or more of the woman’s internal organs.

In the overwhelming majority of cases of obstetric fistula, the condition is caused by prolonged obstructed labor, which is also a leading cause of maternal mortality.

According to the Fistula Foundation, around five percent of all pregnant women worldwide experience obstructed labor.

But in developed countries, where emergency obstetric care is available, obstetric fistulae have been almost entirely eliminated.

“The community rejected me, am forcing myself to be in their midst, am just staying forcefully all my rejected me,” Jackeline told Eye Radio.

Jackeline does not only have to deal with the tragedy of loosing her baby. The debilitating fistula condition has pushed away everyone she hold dear.

“They refused to accompany many in my medication including my immediate family, my father and mother who gave birth to me,” she said.

“I have been coming to hospital for operation to succeed but there was nothing, am just staying. For me to urinate naturally I can’t, am just staying like a little baby with Pumpers.”

Jackeline said she tried to study, but “because of the sickness, you can’t sit with brothers with sickness in your body.”

Afterwards, she felt she couldn’t take the stigma by fellow students anymore, and dropped out.

In the stake reality that she has become a burden to her own family, Jackeline still feels God is on her side.

As she awaits the third surgery at a Juba hospital bed, she told Eye Radio, she prays everyday for a successful operation.

“What I want God to help me, so that they will hear what God done me. And to my colleagues let them be patient, all sickness enters easily strongly, and to be cured takes time all of us will be okay.”

According to WHO, between 50,000 to 100,000 women worldwide are affected by obstetric fistula each year?

It is estimated that more than 2 million young women live with untreated obstetric fistula in Asia and sub-Saharan Africa.

Fistula can be prevented through delaying the age of first pregnancy, the cessation of harmful traditional practices and timely access to obstetric care.