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.

A nurse looking after fistula patients at Juba Teaching Hospital is calling on men to abstain from subjecting their wives to isolation, saying the condition can be easily treated.

The health professional who preferred to named only as Akech urged men to be supportive to their wives’ fistula suffering and ensure they get treated from the condition.

“My message to the men is that fistula is treatable so, do not isolate your wife. If she has fistula, look for treatment especially if there are treatment campaigns like this one, bring her to us we will treat her,” he said.

Akech said supporting fistula patients in their search for healing, will help them overcome psychological distress resulting from the illness.

He made the appeal after some women who underwent fistula surgery at the Juba Teaching hospital narrated their ordeals told Eye Radio.

The patients said they they were rejected and often abused by their husbands, relatives and friends.

One patient who spoke to Eye Radio on condition of anonymity said she was afflicted with fistula, after a doctor mistakenly cut her urethra while giving birth.

“I stayed for three months without moving, my condition has not improved, and I have been left alone by my family,” said a patient who spoke to Eye Radio on condition of anonymity.

Eye Radio published a similar story last month, in which a 24-year-old woman suffering from the condition said she was awaiting her third operation at Juba Teaching Hospital with prayers, hoping the attempt will save her from years of stigma.

Jackeline (not her real name) said she went through excruciating labor at a remote village in Maridi County, a place devoid of modern maternity health service.

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

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

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.