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Angola

In Angola, less than half of women give birth with a skilled medical professional present—putting women at risk for developing obstetric fistula.

Why We Work in Angola

Angola was devastated by a decades-long civil war that ended in 2002. The country’s peace contributed to its own “baby boom,” but Angola’s health infrastructure has not been able to keep up with the needs of its burgeoning population. Despite the country’s wealth in natural resources, health indicators are grim: Angola has one of the world’s highest fertility rates and lowest life expectancy.

While the country has been striving to reduce maternal mortality, it still lacks adequate maternal health services and emergency obstetric care for women. Today less than half of women give birth with a skilled medical professional present, putting women at significant risk for childbirth injury such as obstetric fistula should complications arise.

What You Help Us Do

We are investing in the following areas to build Angola’s in-country medical services and provide life-transforming surgery to as many women as possible:

Cost of Fistula Surgeries
Community Outreach
Surgeon Training

Meet Our Partners

We are currently partnering with Centro Evangélico de Medicina do Lubango, Unidade Fistula Obstetrica and Kalukembe Hospital to deliver fistula treatment to women in Angola.

What projects are we currently funding?

Centro Evangélico de Medicina do Lubango

Centro Evangélico de Medicina do Lubango (CEML) was established in 2006 to address the critical need for maternal health services in Angola. Since its inception, the hospital has been offering the local population year-round, centrally-located fistula care services including transportation, surgery, housing and nutrition assistance.

Unidade Fistula Obstetrica

Fistula Foundation began working with Unidade Fistula Obstetrica (UFO) in 2013. Today UFO oversees the fistula repair unit at Lucrecia Paim Maternity, a large maternity hospital in the capital city of Luanda, where local surgeons provide treatment year-round. Surgeries are provided once a year in Damba by visiting surgeons.

Kalukembe Hospital

Kalukembe Hospital is a large, 100-year-old district hospital established by Swiss missionaries. It has been without a full-time physician for more than 20 years, with nurses managing the many aspects of patient care. Through the Christian Health Service Corps, Dr. Daniel Cummings and Dr. Priscilla Cummings are returning to Angola to serve the people of this rural area.

How much funding have we granted?

Unidade Fistula Obstetrica

  • $90,000 in FY2019
  • $104,100 in FY2018
  • $104,000 in FY2017
  • $109,850 in FY2016
  • $109,800 in FY2015
  • $25,000 in FY2013

CEML

  • $100,000 in FY2018
  • $150,000 in FY2017
  • $100,000 in FY2015
  • $100,000 in FY2014
  • $100,000 in FY2013
  • $100,000 in FY2012
  • $131,704 in FY2011
  • $100,000 in FY2010
  • $50,000 in FY2009

Kalukembe Hospital

  • $20,000 in FY2018
  • $72,500 in FY2017
  • $55,000 in FY2016

News from the Field

Meet Florinda from Angola  •  September 30, 2016
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Florinda is from a small village in central Angola. A teenage bride, she became pregnant at 16. She went into labor at home and struggled for four days before she...
Florinda is from a small village in central Angola. A teenage bride, she became pregnant at 16. She went into labor at home and struggled for four days before she was finally brought to a hospital in Huambo, about 70 miles (over 100 km) away and the nearest place where emergency obstetric care was available. After a long drive over very bad roads, Florinda reached the hospital. Sadly, her baby did not survive.
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Meet Lia from Angola  •  August 03, 2015
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Lia arrived at CEML with great misgivings - she had sought help at many places for her fistula but was given no hope. A friend told her that she might...
Lia arrived at CEML with great misgivings - she had sought help at many places for her fistula but was given no hope. A friend told her that she might find help at CEML and urged her to go, which she eventually did. She told staff there that she sat on some rocks nearby, cried and repeated “God help me” over and over before coming through the doors.
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Huffington Post: Dying From Corruption  •  June 26, 2015
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Humankind has triumphed over diseases that used to kill millions - think plague, smallpox and polio - but we haven't seemed to slay the largest killer of them all: greed....
Humankind has triumphed over diseases that used to kill millions - think plague, smallpox and polio - but we haven't seemed to slay the largest killer of them all: greed. In a riveting piece of stellar journalism, Nick Kristof and Adam Ellick of The New York Times posted this video about Angola that will likely enrage your mind as it grips your heart. For in this oil and diamond rich country, men, women and children are dying every day from preventable and treatable problems while the political elite enrich themselves, numbed to the suffering all around them.
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