Doctor brings hope to African women suffering from stigmatizing condition





MODERN MEDICINE—Dr. Sherry Thomas, center, with staff members of the hospital in Uganda where she treated several women for obstetricfistula, a condition that is the result of difficult childbirth. Thomas and afilmmaker are working on a documentary to raise awareness about the condition.

MODERN MEDICINE—Dr. Sherry Thomas, center, with staff members of the hospital in Uganda where she treated several women for obstetricfistula, a condition that is the result of difficult childbirth. Thomas and afilmmaker are working on a documentary to raise awareness about the condition.

A local obstetrician is looking to make a documentary of her experience in Uganda treating impoverished women who suffer from an often-neglected, stigmatizing condition that can follow difficult childbirth.

Dr. Sherry Thomas, accompanied by activist filmmaker Sandra Mohr, spent nearly three weeks, beginning April 21, in the African nation performing surgery on women with obstetric or vesicovaginal fistulas, holes that develop between the rectum and vagina or the bladder and vagina after severe or failed childbirth.

The trip, funded by Thomas and other donors, was the brainchild of the charity Women at Work International in Uganda. The organization, created by musician Halima Namakula, aims to improve the quality of life for women and children.

In an effort to raise awareness about the often-avoided subject, Thomas and Mohr are creating a short film documenting the patients’ pain, recovery and everything in between.

“(Patients with fistulas) leak fluids,” said Thomas, an OB/ GYN surgeon at Mission Community Hospital in Panorama City who has a practice in Agoura Hills. “Their husbands don’t want them around, their families don’t want them around. . . . They are completely ostracized.”

Women in Third World countries may wait years to have their bodies repaired. Sometimes it never happens.

“In the United States it’s a very easy surgery,” said Thomas, who specializes in urogynecology. “But (in Uganda) they don’t have access to healthcare. It’s devastating.”

Thomas worked alongside surgeon Justus Barange at a hospital in the city of Jinja. Their work restored the patients’ hope for a normal life, she said.

“After the surgery, (the women) can go back home and be with their families,” she said. “They feel like human beings again.”

The trip took six months of prep work. Thomas, who has traveled to the African countries Eritrea, Niger and Nigeria, collected medical supplies from various donors and paid for many materials herself.

The hospital’s conditions left a lot to be desired.

“We only had a small room to work in,” Thomas said. “The hospital (lacks) supplies and equipment. Sometimes, we’d be ready for surgery but didn’t have any gowns to wear.”

But the surgeon didn’t let the supply shortage distract her from her mission. She performed multiple surgeries each day.

“Sherry is tireless,” said Mohr, whose latest documentary, “Radio Wars,” was released this year. “The first time I shot with her, she did seven procedures in three hours. I was blown away.”

Thomas takes it in stride.

“It’s demanding (but) I’m there to work,” she said of her 12-to-14-hour-a-day schedule. “(The surgery) changes their lives.”

Both Thomas, the film’s director and producer, and Mohr, its videographer and editor, hope the documentary will promote greater awareness about the serious but treatable condition.

Fistula occurs when mothers with small pelvises give birth to large- or even average-size infants, Thomas said.

“The baby cannot get out of the birth canal and the chronic pushing damages the mother’s tissue.”

The condition’s resulting stool and urine leakage leads to infection, skin breakdown, discomfort and humiliation, Thomas said.

“They leak all night long so they wash their sheets every day.”

In the United States, this condition can be prevented through cesarean section, but in Africa such procedures are unavailable.

Thomas and Mohr address such issues in their film, tentatively titled “Patients and Determination.”

The film follows an American woman and a Ugandan woman, both of whom have fistulas, and documents the disparity in the quality of their treatment.

Mohr said the Ugandan operating room had deplorable conditions.

“The pillow that they use on the operating table is foam that looks like they pulled it out of a ’54 Chevy,” Mohr said. “The operating room over there has lizards in it.”

In its final stages of completion, the film will give viewers an up-close-and-personal account of the African women’s struggles and the sense of relief they feel after undergoing corrective surgery.

“We’re just trying to show the contrast of people’s state of mind,” Mohr said. “Here, (medical care) is sometimes taken for granted. There, it is an absolute blessing from God.”

A blessing they’re willing to wait for.

“Women (in Uganda) will wait outside in grass for three days to receive treatment,” Mohr said. “In America, people complain if they have to wait an hour.”

Mohr said the experience gave her a new appreciation for American hospitals.

“Two days after I returned, I saw a doctor for a checkup,” Mohr said. “Instead of having a sense of entitlement, I felt enormously grateful that I was sitting on a clean chair. . . . My attitude was so different.”

Thomas, who has medical practices in Hollywood and Agoura, said she hopes to continue her mission trips.

“I’m going to start a nonprofit so I can save money for future trips,” she said. “I want to go back in a few years.”

For information on how to contribute, email Thomas at drsherrythomas@gmail.com.


OPERATING—Dr. Sherry Thomas performs a procedure to repair a woman’s reproductive organs, a relatively simple operation here in the U.S. yet one that is rarely done in Uganda.

OPERATING—Dr. Sherry Thomas performs a procedure to repair a woman’s reproductive organs, a relatively simple operation here in the U.S. yet one that is rarely done in Uganda.