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At a meeting this week of the Tuesday Ladies Group, Australian clinical/child psychologist Kimberley Sheedy spoke of the recent visit to Ethiopia of a group of women from Doha to see the work being done by the Addis Ababa Fistula Hospital. The hospital was founded in 1794 by an Australian obstetrician-gynaecologist, Dr Catherine Hamlin, and her husband.In Ethiopia, Sheedy said, many girls are married as young as 12 years of age, and giving birth while still very young can result in severe internal injuries, known as fistulas, often leading to them being rejected by their families and forced to live in isolation.The hospital provides free surgery to correct this condition to over 2000 women annually, and cares for long-term patients who are unable to return home.The Addis Ababa Fistula Hospital is now recognised world-wide for its pioneering work and has developed programmes for fistula treatment world-wide. There are plans to build five smaller fistula hospitals throughout Ethiopia, each of which will treat around 400 patients a year.  The visitors from Doha also toured the Yezalalem Minch Orphanage in Addis Ababa which provides for children whose parents have died of Aids, and offers support to families who have taken in orphaned children.Four of the women who visited Ethiopia also gave presentations and showed photographs and a video. All of this valuable and important aid, they emphasised, is largely dependent on charitable donations. Many members of the Tuesday Ladies Group have donated in the past and some are supporting individual orphans at the orphanage. Sheedy visits Ethiopia frequently to meet with patients and former patients from the hospital she has known for many years. Her next visit to Ethiopia with a group of women from Doha will be in May this year.An exhibition of photographs taken in Ethiopia by Kimberley Sheedy will open today at the Hyatt Hotel and will run until 4 February. All proceeds from the sale of the photographs will go to the people who appear in them.  Donations to either the hospital or orphanage can be made via the websites www.fistulafoundation.org and www.yezalalemminch.org

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