Copacabana obstetric fistula surgeon, Dr Andrew Browning, has released his first book, A Doctor in Africa, detailing the 17 years he lived in Africa operating on women suffering from debilitating fistulas.
Browning began helping patients affected by obstetric fistulas after working with the late Dr Catherine Hamlin in the 1990s-2000s.
Since then, he has spent nearly two decades in Africa, establishing maternity hospitals with his own charity, The Barbara May Foundation, preventing and treating fistulas, training staff, and healing some of the world’s most disadvantaged women.
His book explains why he chose the path to operate on the impoverished women in Africa rather than establish an Australian surgical practice.
Writing a book was never on Browning’s to-do-list and it took a little encouraging from ghost writer, Patrick Kennedy, to get it going.
However, now it is completed, he said the feedback has been very positive.
“Writing a book about yourself I find very irksome, but the feedback so far has been really positive, and we have already had lots of interest in the women that we help with people (also) wanting to help,” Browning said.
“I tell lots of stories about the women and what they suffer in Africa because of lack of access to health care during childbirth.
“Just their bravery, their courage, their resilience, it is absolutely extraordinary what they face and what they go through so bravely and selflessly.”
Browning’s work operates parallel with his aunt Valerie Browning’s mission – running the Afar Pastoral Development Association (APDA) which helps bring development to the two million nomadic peoples of the Danakil desert.
“My Aunt (Valerie Browning) now has responsibility for 2,000 severely malnourished pregnant women who are receiving food supplements – all funded by donors in Australia giving to the Barbara May Foundation,” he said.
“I am indebted to the Australian authorities for giving me the approval to fly to Africa not only to support my aunt in Ethiopia but hopefully Tanzania as well with fistula surgery.
“Severely weakened by famine these women do not have the reserves to face labour, and the number of women dying in labour has dramatically increased.
“In nearby Uganda maternal deaths and stillbirths have doubled and neonatal deaths have tripled.
“In Uganda, these problems are a result of important travel restrictions and economic hardships induced by the lockdowns; women won’t or can’t afford to get to the hospital and so deliver at home.”
Today, as his children undergo schooling in Australia, Browning returns (with special Federal Government COVID approvals for travel) to Africa 4 – 5 times a year to continue operating and training doctors and nurses.
He was released from quarantine three weeks ago after returning from South Sudan and Uganda where he operated on 35 women in South Sudan and 31 in Uganda.
Jacinta Counihan