Nathalie’s Story: From Abandonment to Healing
At 37, Nathalie was living near Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, with her husband and four children when she became pregnant with her fifth child. Until then, family life had been happy. But when labor began, everything changed.
Nathalie labored for two days without delivering. As the situation became more dangerous, she went to a local health center for help and was referred for emergency surgery because of the severity of the obstructed labor.
Her baby could not be saved.
While grieving that loss, Nathalie realized she was constantly leaking urine. Doctors explained that the prolonged labor had caused an obstetric fistula and that she would need another operation to repair it.
But the family did not have the money.
“My husband run away and left me with the children because we did not have money for the surgery.”
Nathalie left the hospital without treatment and moved with her four children into her parents’ home. Her parents welcomed them, but supporting five additional people placed even more pressure on a household already struggling to make ends meet.
Nathalie knew she needed to earn money. She eventually left her children with her parents and returned to her town, hoping to find work and begin saving for surgery.
Finding employment while living with constant leakage was extremely difficult. The work she could find was mostly washing other people’s clothes for very little money. Nathalie learned to change her pads frequently because if people realized she was leaking urine, she could be asked to leave.
Still, she kept searching for treatment.
Nathalie visited multiple health centers, hoping someone could help. Each time, she received the same answer: surgery was possible, but she would have to pay for it.
The question became increasingly painful. If she could barely earn enough to support herself and her children, how could she ever save enough for treatment?
Then, during one of those health center visits, Nathalie met a midwife who knew about ARENA Medical Center.
The midwife told her that Dr. Itengre provided fistula surgery there without cost to the women receiving care. For Nathalie, the referral offered something she had nearly stopped believing was possible.
A way forward.
At ARENA, Nathalie finally received the surgery she had been unable to afford elsewhere. The repair was successful, and the constant leakage stopped.
After everything she had endured, she was dry again.
Her care did not end with surgery. Nathalie also participated in empowerment training focused on income-generating activities, giving her practical tools she could use as she worked to rebuild her life and support her family.
She has continued staying in contact with the staff at ARENA as she moves forward.
Nathalie’s story shows how the cost of treatment can become another barrier layered on top of grief, stigma, family separation, and poverty. She knew surgery could help her, but knowing treatment existed was not the same as being able to reach it.
It took one midwife who knew where to send her.
That referral connected Nathalie with the care she had spent months searching for and gave her the opportunity to begin rebuilding a life that fistula had made increasingly difficult.
Help Remove the Barriers Between Women and Care
Nathalie spent months searching for treatment she already knew she needed. The barrier was not whether fistula could be repaired. It was whether she could afford to reach the right care.
Your support helps locally led partners connect women with specialized treatment, reintegration, and economic opportunities so cost does not determine who gets the chance to heal.
