The character arc of Catherine Hamlin
A life drawn by Character Arc from the public record
Born Elinor Catherine Nicholson on 24 January 1924 in Sydney, one of six children. Between then and her death sit Frensham School, the University of Sydney medical school in 1946, internships and a residency in obstetrics at a Sydney womens hospital, a marriage in 1950 to a New Zealand physician she worked with, an advertisement in The Lancet placed by the Ethiopian government, an arrival in Addis Ababa in 1959 with a six year old son, a hospital founded in 1974, five more built between 2003 and 2010, sixty thousand women treated, and a cottage on the hospital grounds she never left. The line below draws the whole story.
Drag along the line to move, pinch or use the buttons to look closer. Tap the line to pluck it, or any mark for its card. Drawn from the public record of her life; the sources are at the foot of the page.
Who was Catherine Hamlin?
They went for three years. She stayed sixty one.
She was raised in the Sydney suburb of Ryde, one of six children, went to Frensham School at Mittagong and graduated from the University of Sydney medical school in 1946. After internships at two Sydney hospitals she became a resident in obstetrics at Crown Street Women Hospital, and in 1950 she married Reginald Hamlin, a New Zealander who was a physician and the medical superintendent there.
In 1958 the two of them answered an advertisement in The Lancet. The Ethiopian government was looking for an obstetrician and gynaecologist to establish a midwifery school at a hospital in Addis Ababa, built by the emperor in honour of a daughter and grandchild who had died in childbirth. They arrived in 1959 with their six year old son Richard.
What they found is the reason the rest of this page exists. Obstetric fistula is an injury caused by obstructed labour, and by 1959 it had become what the record calls an academic rarity in Australia and the United States, because those countries had the obstetric care to prevent it. In Ethiopia the cases kept arriving at the school. So the Hamlins decided to build a hospital for nothing else.
It took them until 1974. The Addis Ababa Fistula Hospital was the world first modern fistula hospital, and it remains the only medical centre in the world dedicated exclusively to providing free obstetric fistula repair surgery to poor women with childbirth injuries. The United Nations population agency recognised her as a pioneer in fistula surgery for the techniques and procedures she developed for treating it.
Between 2003 and 2010, by then in her eighties, she established five more fistula treatment centres in remote parts of Ethiopia, where rates were higher because access to care before and around birth was worse: at Bahir Dar, Mekele, Yirgalem, Harar and Mettu. Together the hospitals have treated more than sixty thousand women. Reg Hamlin stayed on the board until he died in 1993. She lived in a cottage on the grounds of the Addis Ababa hospital and remained active in its day-to-day work and in patient care until her own death there in 2020, sixty one years after she arrived.
The moments
Catherine Hamlin's timeline.
The 1920s
Born in Sydney
Everyday. Ryde, Sydney, and one of six.
The 1940s
Medicine at Sydney
Milestone, and it changed everything. A medical degree in 1946, which few women had.
Obstetrics at Crown Street
Milestone, and it changed her direction. She chose obstetrics early and never left it.
The 1950s
She marries Reg
Milestone, and it changed everything. They met at work, and worked together for forty three years.
An advertisement in The Lancet
Milestone, and it changed everything. They answered a job advert in a medical journal.
They arrive with a six year old
Milestone, and it changed everything. Two doctors, a small boy, and a new country.
The 1960s
A condition her country had solved
Milestone, and it changed everything. The injury had vanished at home and was everywhere there.
Go home, or build the hospital
Crossroads, decided.
The paths laid out: stay and build it, taken, or finish the contract. The hospital opened in 1974, five more followed, and more than sixty thousand women have been treated.
The 1970s
The Addis Ababa Fistula Hospital
Milestone, and it changed everything. Fifteen years after they arrived, they opened it.
The 1980s
A pioneer, by the United Nations
Milestone, and it changed everything. She did not just repair them, she worked out how.
The 1990s
Reg dies
Setback, and it changed everything. Forty three years of working together, and then she went on alone.
The 2000s
Five more hospitals
Milestone, and it changed everything. In her eighties, she built five more.
The 2010s
Sixty thousand women
Milestone, and it changed everything. Sixty thousand women, and the surgery is free.
A cottage on the grounds
Everyday. She lived on site and kept seeing patients.
The 2020s
She dies in Addis Ababa
Setback, and it changed everything. Ninety six, at home, which by then was Ethiopia.
The hospital is still there, the five regional centres are still there, and the surgery is still free. What she set moving is measured in women who can go home again, sixty thousand of them, because two doctors read an advertisement and did not leave when the contract ended.
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Sources
- Catherine Hamlin, English Wikipedia biography.
- The UNFPA recognition of her as a pioneer in fistula surgery.
- The records of the Addis Ababa Fistula Hospital and Hamlin Fistula Ethiopia.
- The Lancet advertisement of 1958, as recorded there.