When Dr Browning AM was in South Sudan earlier this year, he met a fistula patient named Tensa. We are humbled and thankful to be able to share her unbelievable story with you.
In this conversation between Dr Andrew Browning AM and Ben McEachen from Hope 103.2, Dr Browning shares Tensa’s story.
As a teenager Tensa was forced to leave her home and family in Eastern Equatoria and go to Sudan to be married. Life was tough and isolated. During her eight pregnancy, Tensa began to have major problems. After two days of agonising labour pains in her village, she still hadn’t delivered.
Tensa decided to start walking to a hospital to get help, but the long labour was starting to affect the nerves in her pelvis and her legs were weakening. After walking for several hours, her legs were too weak and numb, and she fell into a ditch beside the road. Later, a passing bajaj (a small three-wheeled vehicle) drove past and picked her up. Tragically, on the way, the bajaj slipped on the road and rolled, and Tensa fell out of the vehicle. She was now completely paralysed below her waist. Passers-by helped set the bajaj aright and helped Tensa back in, and they travelled on.
Reaching the closest hospital, Tensa had an operation to deliver her stillborn child. She had also sustained severe internal injuries, including an obstetric fistula. The staff of the hospital cared for her, but two operations later she was still leaking urine.
Eventually, Tensa was referred to our fistula camp in Juba, South Sudan. In February she was able to be transported on a Mission Aviation Flight to Reconciliation Hospital, where Dr Browning and colleagues would be operating on 44 women with varying degrees of internal birthing injuries.
Sadly, on arrival, Tensa was ill with high fevers from malaria, and couldn’t be treated straight away. On the very last day of the fistula surgery camp, she was finally well enough to be operated on.
During the operation, Tensa was singing softly (patients have spinal anaesthetics, so they are still awake during surgery but numb from the waist down). The anaethetist and assistant doctor started to sing with her. Not knowing what they were singing, Dr Browning asked them to translate. Tensa was singing “Jesus there is no one like you” with a peaceful smile on her face. Dr Browning said it was such a wonderful time of peaceful worship together with people of such different backgrounds, but all sharing Jesus as Lord.
In the days following Tensa’s operation, the hospital chaplain met with her to pray. She confessed that despite all her suffering, stillborn child, missing her children, abandoned by her husband, and barely able to walk, the biggest source of anguish in her life was not knowing if her family in Eastern Equatoria were still alive or not. She hadn’t been able to contact them for the last 13 years and, knowing there was war and conflict in the area, she didn’t know if anyone from her family was still alive. This weighed heavily on her heart. The chaplain took a photo of Tensa and, unbeknownst to her, posted on his Facebook page.
Early the next morning, three of Tensa’s sisters, a brother and a niece, arrived at the hospital. Tensa got such a shock! She was laughing and crying along with her siblings, and then of course everyone else in the ward joined in too! Tensa’s joy was contagious for everyone sharing that moment with her.
The amazing blessing of seeing Tensa reunited with her family, healed of her injuries, and overcome with joy, is testimony to how your donations, prayers and support restore more than just physical health. Thank you for partnering with us.