Dr Catherine Hamlin

Dr Catherine Hamlin Join us to end preventable childbirth injuries in Ethiopia. Forever 🇪🇹

Conflict ended Banchu’s education. Obstetric fistula ended her marriage. After hiding at home for more than a year, Banc...
03/06/2026

Conflict ended Banchu’s education. Obstetric fistula ended her marriage.

After hiding at home for more than a year, Banchu finally found the courage to seek help at a local clinic. There, staff recommended she travel to Hamlin’s hospital in Bahir Dar.

Following successful surgery, Banchu joined our Women’s Empowerment Program at Desta Mender, where she began learning new skills and rebuilding her confidence.

Now healed, and with new skills for the future, Banchu plans to return home and start her own business - something she once never thought possible.

“If I am successful, I want to open a small restaurant so I can work and also hire women who need help. I want to change the life of at least one woman, just as this organisation changed mine.”

On World Nutrition Day, we recognise that good nutrition is an essential part of healing - and central to the Hamlin Mod...
27/05/2026

On World Nutrition Day, we recognise that good nutrition is an essential part of healing - and central to the Hamlin Model of Care 🥙

Many women arrive malnourished when they come for care at one of Hamlin Fistula Ethiopia’s six fistula hospitals. This is often the result of poverty and ostracism, after living with shame and isolation from their communities.

Patients at Hamlin hospitals receive healthy, nutritious meals during their stay to help build their strength and support faster recovery.


📸 Image Credit: Cameron Bloom / Mary F.Calvert

52 years ago today, the doors opened to a hospital unlike any other.Hamlin’s Addis Ababa Fistula Hospital was opened on ...
23/05/2026

52 years ago today, the doors opened to a hospital unlike any other.

Hamlin’s Addis Ababa Fistula Hospital was opened on the 24th May 1974 by Drs Catherine and Reg Hamlin, on a piece of land beside a river in Ethiopia’s capital.

It was the world’s first modern fistula hospital - created to provide free, specialist treatment for women suffering from obstetric fistula.

Over five decades later, that hospital remains at the heart of Hamlin Fistula Ethiopia’s work: a place of expert care, restoration and dignity, and the beginning of a movement that continues across Ethiopia today.

This is the story behind Hospital by the River - and a legacy still changing women’s lives.

There are only a few hours left to make your International Day to End Obstetric Fistula donation - head to https://bit.l...
23/05/2026

There are only a few hours left to make your International Day to End Obstetric Fistula donation - head to https://bit.ly/4dqPhL8 ❤️‍🩹

An estimated half a million women and girls worldwide are living with this devastating childbirth injury - approximately 30,000 in Ethiopia.

This year, we are shining a light on Genet, who suffered the devastating impacts of fistula for 17 years - unaware there was a cure. đź’”

Because of the support of people like you, Hamlin Fistula Ethiopia found her, treated her and restored her life.

Will you become part of the movement to eradicate obstetric fistula in our lifetime?

On the eve of International Day to End Obstetric Fistula, we honour the life and legacy of Dr Catherine Hamlin - who dev...
21/05/2026

On the eve of International Day to End Obstetric Fistula, we honour the life and legacy of Dr Catherine Hamlin - who devoted her life to eradicating this preventable and treatable childbirth injury.

Dr Catherine first encountered obstetric fistula in her early years in Ethiopia, where she and her husband Reg were told: “The fistula patients will break your heart.”

Determined to help, Drs Catherine and Reg began learning how to treat obstetric fistula. They read surgical literature from the 19th century, corresponded with specialists across the world, and made it their life’s purpose to eradicate fistula in Ethiopia. Forever.

With International Day to End Obstetric Fistula around the corner, we asked Genet’s surgeon, Dr Bitew Abebe, to explain ...
20/05/2026

With International Day to End Obstetric Fistula around the corner, we asked Genet’s surgeon, Dr Bitew Abebe, to explain this devastating childbirth injury - what it is, how it happens, and how it affects the women who suffer from it.

Swipe through to learn why obstetric fistula affects not only individual women, but also families and communities - and why Dr Catherine Hamlin dreamed of a world where fistula no longer exists in Ethiopia.

Together, with your support, we are committed to making that vision a reality.

20/05/2026

To heal her, we first have to find her.

Ahead of International Day to End Obstetric Fistula, our team shares how Hamlin Fistula Ethiopia finds women living hidden with untreated obstetric fistula injuries and supports them through every step of their healing journey.

Did you know?Ethiopia follows its own calendar - and even tells time differently 🇪🇹The Ethiopian calendar has 13 months ...
19/05/2026

Did you know?

Ethiopia follows its own calendar - and even tells time differently 🇪🇹

The Ethiopian calendar has 13 months and is around seven to eight years behind the Gregorian calendar used in many parts of the world.

Ethiopian time is also counted from sunrise, rather than midnight - so 7am is often considered 1 o’clock in local time.

It’s one of the many things that makes Ethiopia’s culture, history and daily life so unique! ❤️

Dr Catherine Hamlin fully utilised her own pioneering education to expand educational opportunities for women in Ethiopi...
18/05/2026

Dr Catherine Hamlin fully utilised her own pioneering education to expand educational opportunities for women in Ethiopia 🇪🇹, her adopted home. Her legacy lives on in the lives of patients and in the training she enabled at the Hamlin College of Midwives, with many former patients studying to be able to help women experiencing the same suffering they have lived through themselves. ♥️

Educated at the University of Sydney's Medical School, Dr Catherine credits her medical training at the university with determining the direction of her life: “It prompted my desire, and my conviction, that someday I would help others in this world. It was my time at Sydney University that completely set the course of my life to spend more than half a century in Ethiopia.”

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