Operation Healing Hope

When Operation Healing Hope (OHH) was launched 10 months ago, primary aim of this global health initiative was to educate and engage United Methodists about the debilitating birth injury obstetric fistula.

Thus, for many United Methodists it should have come as no surprise when Secretary of State Hillary Clinton mentioned “fistula” in a major policy address she delivered at the State Department Jan. 8 on the occasion of the 15th Anniversary of the Cairo U.N. Conference on Population & Development.

In her remarks, Clinton cited work being done to eradicate obstetric fistula by the U.N. Population Fund (UNFPA), with whom Operation Healing Hope collaborates. She said that the United States is “proud once again” to support the work of the U.N. Population Fund.

Every woman everywhere deserves high-quality care not only at her most vulnerable hour, but at every single stage of life.

“Every woman everywhere deserves high-quality care not only at her most vulnerable hour, but at every single stage of life,” Clinton said. “That’s our goal and that’s our responsibility.”

Like UNFPA, Operation Healing Hope is funded by the UN Foundation.

During 2009, OHH reached into a variety of areas to connect United Methodists with obstetric fistula awareness. From the naming of the campaign, to going with a medical mission team to Liberia, to distribution of an Advent Bible study, objectives of the initiative have been about communicating with United Methodists where they are and connecting the issue of obstetric fistula to what they are already doing.

Operation Healing Hope

Operation Healing Hope was chosen as the campaign’s name to draw attention to the fact that a simple surgical procedure is at the heart of bringing relief to growing numbers of fistula victims, estimated at nearly 3 million worldwide. Fistula repair surgery lasts about an hour and costs as little as $300. But the operation is the one hope many have for healing the devastating injury caused when prolonged labor and the pressure of a baby’s head weakens the tissue of the birth canal. Mothers have to face not only the grief of stillbirth after days of unrelenting labor but social isolation due to unremitting incontinence that results.

3 VIM doctors and 5 nurses assisted in fistula treatment and other surgery.

The opportunity to observe such fistula repair surgery as well as to visit notable fistula rehabilitation programs led representatives of Operation Healing Hope to travel to Liberia in July. As a United Methodist General Board of Church & Society (GBCS) consultant and OHH campaign director, I and Linda Bales Todd, director of the Louise & Hugh Moore Population Project at GBCS visited UNFPA and United Methodist fistula-care projects in Monrovia and Tubmanville, Liberia.

I also traveled with a Central Texas Volunteers in Mission (VIM) team to Ganta United Methodist Mission on the border of Liberia and Guinea. At Ganta, three VIM doctors and five nurses assisted in fistula treatment and other surgery. Their family members helped build a birthing hut in a local village.

10 target conferences

Central Texas is one of 10 annual conferences designated as “targets” for Operation Healing Hope. Others include Central Pennsylvania, Eastern Pennsylvania, Greater New Jersey, New England, North Carolina, Pacific Northwest, Peninsula-Delaware, Western New York and West Ohio. Wiley and Todd traveled to as many target as possible during last year’s May and June annual conferences.

Requests for study/quilt kits came from nearly 70 congregations in 23 states.

A highlight of 2009 activities was “Advent Visions of Healing & Hope”, a four-week curriculum in December that included Bible study, reflection and prayer as well as a companion baby quilt project.

Congregations in the target conferences were the first to be recruited for “Advent Visions,” but as word got around online about the innovative study, requests for study/quilt kits came from nearly 70 congregations in 23 states. Church quilt guilds who normally focused on needlework and fabric found themselves learning together about obstetric fistula with the aid of Bible reflections, prayers and a DVD that took them inside a fistula hospital in Ethiopia.

OHH baby quilts are being completed and sent to me. I’m preparing them for shipment to Camphor United Methodist Mission in Tubmanville. The OHH quilts will be distributed to new mothers and babies by the traditional birthing assistants.

In coming months, Operation Healing Hope will continue to connect with its target conferences and United Methodists nationwide. I hope to translate awareness about obstetric fistula into action on behalf of building up UNFPA fistula programs in over 40 countries and to help meet its goal of eradicating obstetric fistula by 2015.

To follow OHH’s progress and to see 2009 month-by-month highlights, visit OHH’s website: Operation Healing Hope.

For more information contact the Rev. Jill Wiley at jillwiley@healhope.com.