The available medical facilities to treat women with obstetric fistula remain mostly unutilised while the lives of women who have suffered this childbirth injury get devastated as they become ostracised from society and family, said healthcare experts at a discussion yesterday.

The discussion titled "Dissemination Workshop on National Fistula Strategy" was organised by the Directorate General of Health Services with the support of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) in the capital's Cirdap auditorium. According to the UNFPA, obstetric fistula is usually caused during unassisted, prolonged and obstructed labour when the sustained pressure of the baby's head on the mother's pelvic bone damages soft tissues and create a hole -- or fistula -- between the vagina and bladder and rectum and eventually results in incontinence.

Afterwards, due to fear of surgery and stigma, and poverty the affected women remain reluctant to get treatment. UNFPA representative Argentina Matavel Piccin said awareness campaigns are needed to make behavioural change to bring the affected women to hospitals.