Dear All,<br><br>Since [[Catherine Hamlin]] was invited to lunch by the Queen last week during her visit here, I thought her article ought to be improved. (Hamlin&#39;s, that is.) It and its companion, the [[Addis Ababa Fistula Hospital]] were a bit of a mess so I have separated them out and organised them, linking all the awards and hopefully explaining Hamlin&#39;s contributions better. <br>
<br>I mentioned her before in an earlier email on this list but now I hope that readers can better see in these two articles why she is such an amazing person and such a heroine - someone IMHO of whom everyone on this list ought to be aware. This is a woman who is personally responsible for curing thousands of women who would otherwise be cast out and without hope. And she is still operating - still doing surgery in her mid-eighties and training others to follow on. In the cosmic scheme of things, had we we been born in a slightly different place or time, we might have been one of the women who needed help such as she provides. All her patients have an obstetric problem that we in the developed world do not have to worry about anymore as we solved it in the middle of the 20th century. It is completely preventable with good obstetric care and Hamlin has been giving that selflessly and expertly for 50 years. Here is someone making a real difference to women&#39;s lives and confronting problems far worse than name calling. My hat goes off to her ...<br>

<br>Gillian<br>