When our team met Mumtaz Begum, she was a 22 year-old mother living with her small son in a refugee camp in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, near the border with Myanmar. Her small family was forced to flee their home, as the Myanmarese army continued to burn Rohingya villages.
Mumtaz was in the final stages of pregnancy, but her family’s lives were on the line. Despite her condition, she made the grueling, days-long journey to safety in Bangladesh with her son. Finally, she made it across the border and settled in the sprawling refugee camp that had sprung up in the hills surrounding Cox’s Bazar. When she went into labor, Mumtaz suffered terrible complications. She soon found that she could not control her feces. On top of all of her troubles, she had developed a recto-vaginal fistula.
Thankfully, Mumtaz did not have to suffer with the condition for long. HOPE Hospital was hard at work in the refugee camps, providing medical help wherever they could. Their presence was well-known, and it did not take long for Mumtaz to hear that HOPE was providing cost-free surgeries through Fistula Foundation for women with her condition. She was referred for treatment at the hospital right away.
Mumtaz recovered from surgery in HOPE’s fistula ward, and is now completely healed. She was touched by the compassion of HOPE’s team, and thankful for Dr. Nrinmoy Biswas the surgeon who performed her surgery. “He is a very good man,” she told visitors from Fistula Foundation shortly before her discharge.
Published on: March 19, 2018