Help these women

I was pleased to read about Ann Gloag's launch of the Freedom from Fistula Foundation (your report, 10 May).

In recent years the charity Ethiopiaid has appealed on behalf of women needing fistula repair. But no charity is forthcoming until the woman actually arrives at the hospital. She has to make her own way there, in some cases by walking for two days, because, even if there's a bus and even if she has the fare, the driver may refuse to let her on with her malodorous anal fistula.

It really needs a telephone point in each village and a light aircraft to take the women in. What am I to suspect but that only the sturdiest women are wanted as practice material for surgeons concerned to perfect their technique to benefit the rich?

Prevention, of course, is infinitely preferable for everyone.

KATHLEEN MANNING

McVeigh Street

Huntly, Aberdeenshire