Dr. Catherine Hamlin graduated in medicine at the University of Sydney in 1946, then met and married Dr Reg Hamlin. Together, with their six-year-old son Richard, they went to Ethiopia in 1959 to work as obstetricians and to start a midwifery school.
They soon found their time and energy drawn increasingly to the plight of obstetric fistula patients. These patients - often girls or very young women - go into obstructed labour at home without access to a skilled birthing attendant. Extended labour results in stillborn children and the tearing of holes between the uterus and the bladder or bowel, often resulting in permanent incontinence. These women become outcasts from their villages and are sometimes rejected by their family. It is estimated that there are up to 9,000 new cases of obstetric fistula each year in Ethiopia alone.
Initially working from the Princess Tsehai Memorial Hospital in Addis Ababa, Reg and Catherine Hamlin operated on 300 fistula patients within the first three years. As news of a cure spread, many more patients came seeking help. Then in 1974, the Hamlins founded the Addis Ababa Fistula Hospital, specifically to treat women with obstetric fistula. The Addis Ababa Fistula Hospital has provided a safe haven where fistula patients are treated free of charge. Dr Reg Hamlin died in August 1993 but Dr Catherine Hamlin's work amongst obstetric fistula sufferers has continued uninterrupted in the five fistula hospitals strategically located in regional Ethiopia. An estimated 35,000 women have been treated since 1959.
Dr Hamlin has been awarded honorary fellowships in the medical associations of Australia, England and the United States. In 1983, she was appointed as a Member of the Order of Australia for her services to gynaecology in developing countries and in 1995, Hamlin was awarded Australia's highest honour, being promoted to the grade of Companion of the Order of Australia. In 2001, she was awarded the Centenary Medal for 'long and outstanding service to international development in Africa'. She has twice been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, in 1999 and 2014.
Pan Macmillan proudly published Dr Hamlin's story, The Hospital by the River, in 2001. Co-authored with John Little, the book became a bestseller. In 2016, Pan Macmillan will publish an updated edition, with a new afterword and a foreword by the former Governor-General of Australia, Dame Quentin Bryce.