Little Inspired by Humanitarian Doctor

When asked to nominate her hero, Australian Olympic Team member and NSW Institute of Spot (NSWIS) athlete Mackenzie Little does not think of gold medal winning athletes, instead she names an Australian doctor who made her life’s work a quest to improve the lives of Ethiopian women.

In 1974, Australian Dr Catherine Hamlin AC, founded the Addis Ababa Fistula Hospital with her husband – and fellow doctor – Reginald. They created the world’s only medical centre that’s dedicated to exclusively providing free obstetric fistula repair surgery to poverty-stricken women who have childbirth injuries.

Little, who’ll compete in the javelin event, said Dr Hamlin’s efforts in the African nation, where she helped thousands of women before her death at 96 in 2020, was a pure form of altruism.

“Dr Hamlin was so generous with her time and very thoughtful,” said Little, who is a doctor herself. “She found an area that she could be impactful in.”

Obstetric fistula is a medical condition in which a hole develops in the birth canal due to childbirth. The hole can be located between the vagina and rectum, ureter, or bladder, and can result in incontinence of urine or faeces.

Complications arising from the injury include depression, infertility, and social isolation. Dr Hamlin felt moved by the plight because she noted the affected women were the outcasts of Ethiopian society having lost everything that made them happy and existed without friends or hope.

Besides the surgery, Dr Hamlin also provided the women with food, a blanket, and clothes when they turned up to the hospital. Hamlin, who was a devout Christian, was twice nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize for her pioneering work to eradicate what is a preventable and debilitating condition.

Little, who has worked 14 hour shifts at the Royal North Shore Hospital since becoming a doctor, said she was inspired by Dr Hamlin’s work and commitment to the ‘betterment’ of the lives of people in need of help.

“From an early age, Dr Catherine Hamlin was someone I really looked up to,” said Little, a NSW Instiute of Sport athlete.

 “She’s really well known, certainly in the medical community, for being so kind and generous, and obviously so smart and skilled in the fact that she performed these surgeries that are completely life-changing for women in communities that don’t have the resources that we do [in Australia].”

Little, who said she knew from an early age she wanted to do medicine, said her first few months on the wards at Royal North Shore Hospital had prepared her for anything that can be thrown her way in Paris.

“The reality of working in the hospital in this junior doctor role is taxing in a way that I think I didn’t quite expect,” she said with a smile.

“[And I love it] but at the end of the day, when you’ve kind of seen so much and been on your feet the entire day the thought of putting my gear on and going to training is sometimes a burdensome thought.

“But it kind of fits well in my philosophy that I kind of take into training, which is that I train when I’m sick and tired and jet-lagged and stressed and in all kinds of adverse conditions so that in a competition when inevitably I have a cold, I have just come off a 24-hour plane flight the morning before, when anything goes wrong in a competition, I’ve actually trained in those conditions multiple times.

“It’s nothing new, and so I’ve actually just spent my whole last few years of training in this, you know, rather time-sensitive, stressful environment building up that kind of bank of experience such that in a competition, no matter what happens I’m prepared, and even my average competition, I know I’m going to do well because there’s no excuses anymore and it doesn’t scare me to have me to have things go wrong.”

Mackenzie Little contests the qualification round of the women’s javelin on Day 11 of the Games, 6:25pm, Wednesday 7 August 2024 AEST.

Daniel Lane