New book an uplifting account of doctor's work to improve lives of women in Africa

Dr Andrew Browning, who lived in Africa for 17 years and still returns regularly, has operated on more than 7000 women with obstetric fistula, caused by the trauma of obstructed childbirth.

Dr Browning's memoirs, titled A Doctor in Africa and written with the assistance of Heathcote author Patrick Kennedy, were launched at a fundraising event at the Sydney Opera House.

The surgeon got his first taste of Africa as a student in 1998, and decades later still operates in temperatures over 50C.

Mr Kennedy has calculated Dr Browning, through his charity the Barbara May Foundation, has released his 7000 patients from a collective 150,000 years of burden of urinary and bowel incontinence, as well as rejection.

"I have been blessed to write several books in the past and when I heard Andrew on a podcast talking about his work, I offered to help him write his memoirs," Mr Kennedy said.

"It was an amazing journey learning what Andrew and his team have done for the impoverished women in Africa and south east Asia.

"We were often liaising and emailing each other while he was operating in Africa where he has been given special dispensation to travel during COVID to help relieve the suffering of so many women."

Dr Browning sees his skills as "God-given".

"From the age of six, I knew I wanted to be a missionary doctor and, since then, have followed God's prompting in moving to Africa to share Christ's love, concern, and compassion while operating on some of the most marginalised women in the world," he said.

"Every single cent of all the authors' payments and royalties from our book are being donated back to the vital work of fistula repair and maternity work.

"Fistulas are unnatural holes between organs such as the vagina, bowel, rectum and bladder caused by the trauma of obstructed childbirth.

"Frequently, both mother and child die. If the mother survives, she is left with malodorous urine and faeces leaking from bodily cavities for the rest of her life.

"A fistula results when women don't have access to doctors trained in caesarean sections.

"African women who suffer with obstetric injuries are often made outcasts in their own community, unable to leave their homes and left with little prospect of a fulfilling life."

Dr Browning lived in Africa from 2000 until 2017, when he returned to Australia for his children's schooling.

He makes four to five visits back to Africa each year to operate on women in places such as Tanzania, Ethiopia, Uganda, South Sudan and Nepal.

Dr Browning will speak about his work and sign copies of his book at an Africa by the Sea fundraiser at Wanda Surf Life Saving Club at 6pm on Friday June 4.

The function will include live music and gourmet canapes.

Tickets are $80 per person and can be booked through www.trybooking.com/BPROV, or call Maryanne Ayres on 0424 440 771.