The condition can be treated, even years later, to bring these women a new lease on life. Doctors Mark Karnes and Nate Ross and their team at the Soddo Christian Hospital use a variety of tools, but in many cases, a $435 surgery is all that’s needed to relieve the suffering and daily pain, odour, and self-inflicted isolation. This is a price so far beyond the means of many women in Ethiopia who could otherwise be healed.

From shame, pain and isolation to dignity, healing and support. Imagine living for years with a uterus that has fallen and stretched out of position, perhaps so severely that it is protruding from your body. That is the reality for thousands of Ethiopian women who have laboured at home as they birthed their children, often spending days delivering with no medical care.

Over the years that this program has been operating in Soddo, Ethiopia, women have begun sharing their stories with neighbours, friends and family members, despite a culture of intense privacy that often leads those with prolapse to withdraw and live in shame and loneliness. It is truly a miracle to restore dignity and – for some of the women – regular reproductive operation through a relatively simple surgery.