The national government in collaboration with Makueni County on Sunday launched weeklong corrective surgeries for women with fistula.
The exercise leads up to the establishment of a fistula care centre in the county.
The surgeries will take place in the Makueni Mother and Child Hospital and will benefit women from Makueni and neighbouring counties.
Makueni county has a trained and competent surgical team to offer repair services.
Fistula is a devastating injury caused by lack of good care during childbirth and leads to leakage of urine and sometimes stool.
Women who suffer from fistula experience stigma and are often abandoned by their partners and families.
The county Chief Executive for Health Dr Paul Musila said the area's health department screened women in 14 of the county's health facilities to detect those with fistula in the week before surgeries.
"We are conducting outreaches because women who develop fistula are often poor, live in rural areas and may lack awareness about where to get care or whether there is treatment in the first place," she said.
The head of the Division of Reproductive Health Dr Edward Serem, lauded the county for the holistic approach taken towards tackling Fistula which, he added, is a symptom of a weak system.
Serem was referring to the country's networks of care, an innovation by the county to place all private and public hospitals in one network to facilitate faster communications during referrals.
The lead obstetric surgeon at Makueni County Referral Hospital Dr Doris Mbithi said of the 40 screened women, 20 are already hospitalised in the facility and 13 are scheduled for surgery.
The Ministry of Health estimated 3,000 cases of obstetric fistula in the country annually, with approximately one to two fistulae for every 1,000 deliveries.
Corrective surgeries are the only treatment to cure the incontinence that a fistula causes.
MoH also estimates that there are 24,000 women living with obstetric fistula in Kenya yet, as little as 2,000 received treatment in 2021, according to data from the Global Fistula Map.
Nearly 2,500 seek care annually and only three in ten get the surgery resulting in a backlog, partly due to a lack of trained surgeons.
Kenya only has ten trained surgeons with specialised skills for fistula repair.
Project Director, of Obstetric Fistula at Jhpiego Kenya Dr Daisy Ruto, said the project will not only support the training of a surgeon but a whole surgical team including anaesthetists, physiotherapists, nutritionists, counsellors and nurses to ensure the patient gets holistic and rehabilitative care.
The team was trained at Gynocare, a centre accredited by the International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics (FIGO).
"Apart from the surgical team, we brought in the nutritionists because most of these women are malnourished and need to be optimized before surgery since some don't eat well or drink enough fluids to avoid leaking urine and stool," she added.
Ruto said some of the women have been shunned and stigmatised to an extent of losing social skills, noting that they will need a counsellor to improve their mental health and support their integration back into society.
The project will mentor a second surgical team from Makindu Sub-County Hospital with support from expert Fistula surgeons.