Stagecoach millionaire starts charity for African women
By Andy Ricketts, Third Sector Online, 2008
One of the UK's leading female philanthropists has launched a new healthcare charity to help women in Africa.
Ann Gloag, who founded transport company the Sagecoach Group, has set up the Freedom from Fistula Foundation to provide healthcare to women during pregnancy and childbirth.
The charity aims to treat and prevent obstetric fistulas, holes between the vagina and the rectum or the bladder caused during childbirth that can leave sufferers incontinent. It they affect an estimated two million women in Africa, the charity said.
The foundation will provide free surgery to women who develop the condition due the poor medical care, and will train local attendants in a bid to prevent fistulas from occuring.
What woman in this country can imagine giving birth to a stillborn baby and being left incontinent as a result? said Gloag. It is unthinkable to us, yet millions of women are suffering silently and they have no-one speaking up for them.
The foundation has started work rebuilding a wing of a hospital in Monrovia, Liberia, which will have a dedicated fistula unit.