Lighting a Candle: A Midwife for Every Mother (ATOM Study Guide)

Lighting A Candle: A Midwife for Every Mother tells the inspiring story of two compassionate and visionary doctors who deserve to be household names. Gynaecologists Catherine and Reg Hamlin left Australia in 1959 on what was intended to be a short contract to establish a midwifery school in Ethiopia. Fifty years later, Dr Catherine Hamlin AC is still there, running one of the most outstanding medical programs in the world.

Half a century ago, the Hamlins' hearts were broken by the many women they met who suffered from the catastrophic effects of obstructed labour. This is a problem easily dealt with in the developed world by assisted delivery or Caesarean section, but it can be disastrous without proper medical intervention. Days in obstructed labour can cause a hole or fistula in the bladder and sometimes the rectum. As a result, the affected woman leaks urine and/or faeces constantly and has an offensive odour. Often her husband will leave her and her family and friends will avoid her. The awful physical injuries are compounded by rejection, separation, loneliness and shame. Many of these young women feel they have suffered a fate worse than death. Unable to turn away from their plight, the Hamlins chose to dedicate their lives to these neglected and forgotten women, who, without help, face a lifetime of incapacity, degradation and ostracism.

The Addis Ababa Fistula Hospital, established by Drs Catherine and Reg Hamlin in 1974, has become an internationally renowned teaching institution for fistula surgery. Doctors from many African countries and other parts of the developing world come to be trained in the special surgical technique developed by the Hamlins. Also, the hospital has trained over 3000 desperately needed health workers. Every year, the hospital treats over 2000 women suffering from obstetric fistula and who come to the hospital's main facility in Addis Ababa or to one of its five regional fistula centres spread across Ethiopia. The delicate surgical technique developed by the Hamlins in most cases results in a complete cure. Since Dr Reg Hamlin's death in 1993, Catherine has continued their work, and more than 37,000 women have now been treated and cured. The hospital restores the dignity of these poor young women, offering them the promise of new lives. The hospital employs ten fistula surgeons and Dr Hamlin, now well into her eighties, still operates on Thursday mornings, as she tirelessly continues to work towards her goal of completely eradicating obstetric fistula.

The hospital has also established the Hamlin College of Midwives which is training young women to be fully qualified midwives and deploying them into regional areas to prevent women dying in labour or suffering the tragic consequences of obstetric fistula.

Lighting a Candle was produced by the Hamlin Fistula Relief and Aid Fund which is the registered Australian charity dedicated to supporting the Addis Ababa Fistula Hospital and the Hamlin College of Midwives in Ethiopia. Funding for the documentary was generously provided by AusAID.

Curriculum Links

This important film highlights the plight of some of the most destitute women in one of the poorest countries in the world. Obstetric fistula is a huge problem in developing countries and serves to graphically highlight the terrible inequities that exist within and between nations. As teachers, we have a responsibility to educate and inform our students about the world and their place in it. If our students are going to become adults who will participate in creating global solutions to the many crises we face around the world, then they need to be inspired by stories such as the Hamlins'. This is a film to awaken one's conscience: students need to understand the tremendous privileges we in the West accept as a matter of course and to examine their own potential to act in concrete and meaningful ways to make the world a better place. Thi