How Catherine Hamlin brought safe birthing to Ethiopia

On Thursday afternoon, Australian time, Catherine Hamlin will wake up in a simple mud brick hut on a river in Addis Ababa. She will make her bed, eat a basic breakfast, walk up fifty stairs to a hospital and then operate on some of the world’s most disadvantaged women.

It’s just her usual routine, yet it’s nothing short of remarkable when you consider Dr Hamlin turns 90 on Friday and has served Ethiopia’s women as long as their country’s average citizen actually manages to survive on this often cruel, always unfair earth.

While Catherine Hamlin will accept a call from the Governmor General Quentin Bryce on her birthday, she doesn’t want presents – just funds to continue her work to restore the health and dignity to women destroyed by something we take for granted: Safe birth. Read more: Daily Life