Jeanette Haslam recently moved from Britain to Heidelberg in Germany and is attempting to develop a new organisation, the European Network of Continence Organizations or Enco.

"We are working to encourage contact and the exchange of ideas between European continence organisations," she says. "We want to function as a kind of bank of knowledge and clinical experience in incontinence care.

But we also want to provoke a debate and challenge established ‘truths.’ The idea is that everyone in our network will be able to access our services."

Haslam says that Enco will work to introduce care workers to new clinical ideas and run practical training for those working with continence problems.

"We’ve only just established ourselves, and it’s too early to say how it’s going," she says. She adds that the young organisation is in acute need of three things: enthusiasm, people prepared to work and, of course, the money to finance it all.

A conference in October 2001 -- time and place not yet decided -- is planned to boost efforts to a new European network.

TEXT GABOR HONT PHOTO MARTTI KAINULAINEN/LEHTIKUVA