Catherine Hamlin

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Catherine Hamlin is the co-founder of Addis Ababa Fistula Hospital, the world’s only medical center dedicated exclusively to providing free fistula repair surgery to poor women suffering from childbirth injuries.

After graduating from the University of Sydney Medical School in 1946, Dr. Hamlin (then Catherine Nicholson) took a resident position at the Crown Street Women's Hospital under the medical directorship of Dr. Reginald Hamlin, whom she later married. In 1959, she and her husband traveled to Ethiopia to establish a school of midwifery in Addis Ababa. Fifteen years later they founded Addis Ababa Fistula Hospital.

Hamlin has been awarded honorary fellowships in the medical associations of Australia, England and the United States and has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. She is the author of the best-selling book The Hospital by the River.