Submitted by admin on April 22, 2009 - 23:03
ETHIOPIA
Hamlin, Reginald Henry James, O.B.E.
(1908– ).
Obstetrician and gynaecologist, Addis Ababa.
Reginald Hamlin was born on 21 April 1908 at Napier and educated in Canterbury (M.A. Hons. 1932) and Otago Universities. A gold medallist in gynaecology and obstetrics in 1941, he gained his M.B., Ch.B., in the following year and saw service as a surgeon-lieutenant in the Royal New Zealand Navy. After the war he took up a medical travelling scholarship and obtained a F.R.C.O.G. (London). Since then he has held obstetrical and gynaecological appointments in London, Sydney, and Hong Kong. In 1959 he became consultant obstetrician and gynaecologist at the Princess Tsahai Memorial Hospital in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. In 1965 Dr Hamlin was awarded the O.B.E. for his “unremitting work for the welfare of the women of Ethiopia”. At the hospital he has built up a special unit which fights fistula—a name for the almost incredible injuries suffered by many young Ethiopian mothers in childbirth unattended by midwives.