The Hospital By the River [Paperback]

Dr. Catherine Hamlin arrived in Ethiopia in 1959 for a short medical contract. She stayed for life. This is her memoir of building the Addis Ababa Fistula Hospital, a place that has treated over 60,000 women suffering from childbirth injuries that left them incontinent, ostracized, and often suicidal. Hamlin's work transformed obstetric fistula from a sentence of shame into something treatable — giving women back their dignity, their health, and their place in society. The writing is straightforward and deeply humane, never sentimental about the suffering she's witnessed. It's a portrait of what one person can do when they refuse to look away. For readers who loved *Mountains Beyond Mountains* or anyone drawn to medicine, social justice, and stories of quiet heroism that span decades.