Catherine Hamlin AC (née Nicholson, 1924–2020) graduated from the University of Sydney in 1946 and went to work at Crown Street Women’s Hospital, where she met fellow doctor Reginald Hamlin. In 1958, the couple answered an advertisement in the Lancet calling for doctors to establish a midwifery school in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. There they developed a surgical technique to repair horrifying – though relatively common – cases of obstetric fistula, opening a clinic dedicated to this endeavour in 1961. In 1974, they established the Addis Ababa Fistula Hospital. Since then, the hospital and its offshoots have provided free treatment for more than 50,000 women. Following her husband's death in 1993, Hamlin expanded the work of the hospital, lobbying and travelling extensively to raise funds. Hamlin Fistula Ethiopia is now a healthcare network with more than 550 Ethiopian staff servicing six fistula hospitals, a rehabilitation centre and the Hamlin College of Midwives.
Photo-journalist Nigel Brennan photographed Hamlin in 2006 at the Addis Ababa Fistula Hospital, at the entrance to the operating theatre named for her late husband. Three years later Brennan was taken as a hostage by militants in Somalia, who held him captive for 14 months. He later returned to Ethiopia, taking photographs for a calendar to support Hamlin’s work.
National Photographic Portrait Prize 2007 Finalist
Purchased 2008
© Nigel Brennan
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