A renowned family medicine consultant and fistula surgeon, Professor Sunday Lengmang, has linked the alarming prevalence of Vesico-Vaginal Fistula, VVF, to poverty.
Lengmang, serving as the Project Director of the Evangel VVF Center at Bingham University Teaching Hospital in Jos, Plateau State, said this in an interview with journalists in Taraba State.
Asserting that poverty serves as the root cause of VVF, Lengmang urgently called on the victims to avail themselves of the ongoing free surgeries in the state.
The surgeon, leading a team targeting over 560 women and girls, including those with disabilities, emphasized the focus on surgical interventions to address VVF and other reproductive health issues in the state.
Highlighting the significance of their mission, Lengmang stated, “Our interest in Taraba and Nigeria as a whole is to improve the health of women and girls, especially those in their reproductive age, with a particular concern for those experiencing female genital fistula.”
Addressing the prevalence rate of fistula in the state, Lengmang expressed the necessity of bringing services closer to the people due to the profound impact of poverty.
He stressed that, “the root cause of fistula is poverty because it is poverty that makes women not deliver in the hospital.”
