Author(s): John Little

Biography

Dr Catherine Hamlin has been described as a living saint and one of our greatest Australians. Since 1959 she has lived and worked in Ethiopia, helping the victims of fistulas - devastating injuries caused by obstructed labour in childbirth, which condemn women to a lifetime of incapacity and degradation. The surgery she pioneered has helped tens of thousands of sufferers return to normal life after being shunned by their families and communities. The hospitals she has set up in her adopted country now act as teaching centres for obstetricians and surgeons from many developing nations. Catherine's Gift takes us inside her extraordinary world, following the fate of some of the women who have travelled to Dr Hamlin's hospitals in the hope of a cure for their fistula injuries.