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Tuesday, February 27, 2018
Nativity on a knife-edge: the struggle for survival in Somalia – in pictures
A young boy is measured to see if he is malnourished at a health centre
near the Salama camp for displaced people, near Galkayo. Malnutrition is
an underlying cause of a large percentage of deaths among children
under the age of five in Somalia. Basic medical services are free to
access here, but many cannot afford the transport to travel to them
For newborns in Somalia, many of whom are delivered in dusty,
makeshift shelters without the assistance of a midwife or doctor, the
risk of infection is high. With drought and conflict driving many women
from their homes, one child in every 26 dies within 28 days of birth –
many on the same day
All photographs: Kate Holt/Unicef
When Ubah Abdullahi went into labour she knew there was no chance of
seeing a midwife or doctor. After a gruelling 12 hours her baby daughter
arrived, delivered on to the floor of a makeshift shelter. Her family
was among thousands driven from their homes by drought and conflict in
central Somalia last year. Now living at the Najah camp for displaced
people near Galkayo, Abdullahi did not have the money to travel to a
health centre. ‘I couldn’t afford to take a taxi to the clinic but my
mother-in-law was here to help,’ she said. Abdullahi is not alone. In
Somalia seven out of 10 women give birth at home and babies born in
basic shelters are at risk from infection and other complications
The sun sets over the Najah camp, where the majority of inhabitants are
women and children. Babies born here are at grave risk due to infections
and the lack of access to professional healthcare should complications
occur. In Somalia the neonatal mortality rate – the death rate for
babies under 28 days old – is the
fourth highest in the world.
One of every 26 babies dies within four weeks, many on the day they
were born. Unicef’s health chief in Somalia, Samson Agbo, said many
newborns could be saved if mothers could access proper medical care.
Women wait with their children outside a temporary community centre in
the cooler evenings at the Najah camp. The effects of drought are still
being felt throughout Somalia, which has forced thousands of people who
were pastoralists to seek food and shelter around towns. A Unicef report
found eight of the 10 most dangerous places to be born are in
sub-Saharan Africa, where pregnant women are much less likely to receive
assistance
Sahra Abdi holds a pan containing the rice she has to feed her five
children. She arrived in the Najah camp at the start of February. Her
four-year-old daughter died on the journey. Her husband has been
suffering from mental health problems since all the family’s goats and
sheep were wiped out by drought. He is being cared for by his mother in
Galkayo town and Abdi is left at the camp to care for their children.
Food shortages in such settlements mean many of the mothers are
malnourished and commonly give birth to babies prematurely. In Somalia,
where women have six or seven children on average, there is also a high
adolescent fertility rate
Baby Farhia is cradled by an aunt in the maternity ward of Mudug
teaching hospital in Galkayo. Her mother, Fadumo Abdullahi, had been
forced to have a caesarean because she was suffering from pre-eclampsia.
The condition was picked up on an antenatal visit, yet across Somalia
many pregnant women do not have access to healthcare during their
pregnancies, so complications are not identified early, leading to more
serious health problems
Mariam Abdullahi comforts her newborn baby in the maternity ward of
Mudug teaching hospital. Across Somalia, only 28% of babies were born in
hospitals or clinics in 2017. Abdullahi said: ‘During a visit to the
doctor before giving birth they told me the baby was large and I knew I
would have care in a hospital’
A community elder prays next to the graves of two babies who died
recently at the Najah camp. Local midwife Rahma Mohamed said that more
support is needed for health services for expectant mothers. She works
at the Salama mother and child health centre. ‘I think more women would
come here if they realised it was free and if they had transport,’ she
said. ‘We also need support to stay open 24 hours. And we have to do
more to persuade women who still prefer to deliver under a tree or use
traditional medicine’
'You Have Dark Skin And You Are Beautiful': The Long Fight Against Skin Bleaching
Amira Adawe has a radio show, Beauty-Wellness Talk,
which is a platform where the Somali community can talk openly about
skin lightening without fear of being outed or stigmatized.
Nancy Rosenbaum for NPR
Amira Adawe has just arrived at a Somali-American community radio
station in Minneapolis where she hosts a weekly call-in show called Beauty-Wellness Talk. After peeling off her winter jacket, Adawe slides a pair of headphones over her crown of dark, short curls. "Hello? As-Salaam-Alaikum,"
she says into the foam mouth of her studio microphone. An anonymous
stream of listeners starts calling in to confide about a subject that is
deeply personal and also taboo — skin bleaching.
Adawe is a
Minnesota-based public health researcher and educator who works as a
manager in Gov. Mark Dayton's Children's Cabinet. In 2011, while a
graduate student and health educator with St. Paul-Ramsey County Public Health, Adawe proposed a study
to investigate how Somali women use skin bleaching creams in their
daily lives. Growing up in Mogadishu and Minneapolis, Adawe knew that
skin lightening was widespread in her community.
"A lot of it
ties to colonization," Adawe says. "Certain skin colors were more
accepted in the society. But through the years, it became so embedded in
the culture to where it's become normal. If you're light-skinned,
you're more accepted," she says. She had trouble finding women who were willing to be
interviewed. Adawe says there's a stigma around admitting to skin
bleaching. "Women don't want other women talking about them. They want
to pretend that this is their natural color," she says. Adawe
suspected that the fast-acting creams contained toxic chemicals, and she
was right to be suspicious. Out of 27 different creams tested by
Minnesota researchers as part of Adawe's study, 11 contained mercury levels ranging from 4.08 up to 33,000 parts per million (ppm). (The U.S. Food and Drug Administration only allows mercury in amounts of less than one part per million in most cosmetics.)
The FDA classifies skin whitening creams as both a cosmetic and a
drug. According to FDA spokesperson Peter Cassell, the "use of mercury
in skin-bleaching preparations and other cosmetics, with few exceptions
has been prohibited in the U.S." since 1973. "The FDA has been aware of mercury as a potential allergen, skin irritant and neurotoxin for decades," Cassell says.
The
seven Somali women Adawe interviewed for her study reported mixing
several different creams into one concoction and storing it in the
refrigerator. Some slathered the cream mixture over their bodies
multiple times a day, even while pregnant or breastfeeding. These
findings alarmed Adawe. The possibility that children or developing
babies could potentially ingest mercury through breast milk or
contaminated food or water was especially concerning.
Skin
bleaching products can also contain steroids, which thin the skin, as
well as hydroquinone, a suspected carcinogen that is banned in some
countries.
"That is a really huge public health issue. That
mercury vapor alone can expose everybody in the home, even people who
visit. That was really shocking to me," Adawe says.
Despite FDA
regulations, toxic skin lightening creams are accessible in the United
States. The products get smuggled past borders through personal luggage
and can be found in ethnic markets and also online. A global market Globally, skin bleaching is a multibillion-dollar business. According to a 2017 market research study
by Global Industry Analysts, the market for skin lightening products is
anticipated to exceed $31 billion by 2024, with the Asia-Pacific region
representing the fastest-growing market. Adawe was surprised
to learn that skin bleaching is such a global phenomenon. "I was so
focused in the Somali community and other African communities that I
didn't know this was happening in other places," she says.
Seventy-seven percent of women in Nigeria use skin lighteners, more than anywhere else in the world, the World Health Organization reported in 2011.
In 2004, nearly 40 percent of women surveyed in China, Malaysia, the
Philippines and South Korea reported using use skin lighteners, and in
India, 61 percent of the dermatological market is comprised of skin
lightening products, according to the same WHO report.
As Adawe
continued to sound an alarm about skin bleaching, she realized that
warning people about the health risks of toxic chemicals wasn't
necessarily enough to change behaviors. So long as the belief that
lighter skin is inherently preferable persisted, women would likely keep
bleaching, she thought. So she decided to tackle the issue from another
direction.
Radio outreach Adawe launched her radio show, Beauty-Wellness Talk,
in November 2017. It's a platform where the Somali community can talk
openly about skin lightening without fear of being outed or stigmatized.
From the beginning, Adawe made it clear that listeners could call in
anonymously.
On a recent wintry Saturday afternoon, Adawe's
in-studio radio guest is Hibat Sharif, an educator and outreach worker
with St. Paul-Ramsey County Public Health. They're discussing how
parents can build healthy self-esteem in their children, especially
girls.
"We're African, we're Somali, we have dark skin," says
Sharif in a mix of Somali and English. "Our skin is melanated. It
provides us with a lot of benefits. Why are we telling our girls: You'd
look so much better if you were lighter? It's important not to put those
toxic stereotypes in your child's head." Sharif cautions listeners about words that reinforce harmful stereotypes, such as cadey, a Somali expression of endearment. Questioning word choices "That
word is really heavy," explains Salma Ali, 19, a Somali-American
college student who grew up in the Twin Cities area. Her friend, Yusra
Abdi, also 19, agrees. "It means whitey. Like white girl," Abdi says. "You will never hear anybody say madoowey, which is 'darky.' If anything, that would be an insult in the Somali language."
Colorism
is personal for both Abdi and Ali, who describe themselves as
dark-skinned. "Growing up, if somebody in my family was mad at me,
they'd call me koor madow, which means, 'Hey darker-skinned,' " explains Ali. "And it was an insult," she adds. Family
members pressured Ali and Abdi to use lightening creams. When Abdi was
in middle school, her mother gave her a lightening gel to help with acne
scars. After about a month, she noticed her complexion had lightened
and her acne marks had worsened. She decided to stop.
"When
women use these products, it comes from a very deeply ingrained place of
insecurity," Ali says. "It's because of what society pushes on us to
believe. Across all cultures, darker-skinned people have self-esteem
issues." Both Ali and Abdi say that they've seen Somali women
obfuscate their use of skin lightening products by describing the
practice as cleaning their skin or helping it to glow.
"I've
had my aunts come up to me telling me, 'Salma you're not ugly, it's just
that your skin is just a little dirty. You need to clean it up. I got
some products from China. I'mma hook you up.' I'm like, 'How is my skin
dirty? I'm taking care of myself.' But because of the fact that I have
darker skin, I'm seen as ugly. And that's just part of the way we've all
been socialized."
Changing attitudes Adawe wants to
disrupt that socialization, but changing ingrained behaviors and
perceptions takes time. She sees medical providers as key partners in
actualizing systemic change. Over the past six and a half years, Adawe
says she and her colleagues have trained more than 100 clinic systems,
with a focus on pediatric care.
She advises doctors and nurses
not to ask patients about skin bleaching directly, but instead to probe
slowly and with sensitivity about the different lotions women use.
Nurses who conduct home visits with pregnant women can play an
especially important role since they build a relationship with mothers
over time and can see if skin lightening products are being kept in the
home.
On a Thursday afternoon in mid-February, Sharif, the
outreach worker, stands in front of a class of Somali, Hmong, Nepalese
and Karen adult students and their translators. The students are all new
arrivals to the United States. The class hums with a staccato melody of
different languages.
"The No. 1 thing you can do is to stop
using these products," Sharif tells the students in English and Somali.
"The biggest takeaway from this presentation is that every shade is
beautiful," she says. A Somali man in the class says it's been ingrained in him to gravitate toward lighter-skinned women.
Sharif laughs and says, "The change needs to start with you. It really does." She asks him if he has dark-skinned daughters, and the man says he does. "What
does that say to your daughter?" Sharif says when reflecting on the
exchange after class. "Do you want a guy to treat your daughter that way
where he tells her she's not beautiful because she's dark?"
"You have dark skin and you are beautiful" Salma
Ali says she had low self-esteem when she was younger. It's something
she thinks a lot of darker-skinned young women experience. Things
shifted in high school when she started reading books by black women
writers and found inspiration in seeing black women actors play strong
leading roles on television.
Social media helped Ali and Abdi
to find affirming messages about black beauty as well. Both of them are
fans of black women beauty vloggers like Jackie Aina
and Alyssa Forever whose YouTube channels attract millions of views.
They credit Rihanna for leading the way with releasing a makeup line
with many different shades for darker-skinned women.
"It can
really change the way you think about yourself and the way you see the
world," says Ali about social media. "I really do have hope for this
next generation of darker-skinned women who want to be represented. Who
want to be uplifted and celebrated for our skin. You have dark skin and
you are beautiful. I really want that to be a cultural norm," she says.
Adawe
says that after working on this issue for nearly seven years, she's
starting to see hints of change. More people are talking, disagreeing
and questioning colorism out in the open. "All of that didn't exist
before," she says. "All of that helps." Adawe is now writing a curriculum for teachers. Her next step is to take the conversation into the schools.
"This
is going to need systemic change," says Ali, who is studying sociology
with a focus in health care and a minor in public health and
neuroscience at the University of Minnesota. "I feel like it's something
that's so within us that it's going to take a while. It's going to take
some work."
Qatar Charity gives ambulances to hospitals in Mogadishu
Doha: The Qatar Charity
Office in Somalia delivered three ambulances to hospitals in the capital
Mogadishu to support health services in a ceremony attended by local
ministers and officials, members of the Qatari and other embassies.
Officials during the ambulance handing over ceremony.
The ambulances have been provided at a time when many
hospitals in Somalia were suffering from a severe shortage in the
patient transport services, especially for urgent cases, as many
vehicles were not designed to provide first aid, which had maximised the
risk to the lives of many patients.
The Minister of Health of the Somali Federal Government Dr
Fawzia Abikar Nour, the Minister of Planning and Investment of Somalia
Jamal Mohammed Hassan, the Chargé d’Affaires of the Embassy of Qatar in
Mogadishu Hassan bin Hamza, the Ambassador of Turkey in Somalia Olgen
Becker, several members of the Somali Parliament, officials of the
hospital benefiting from the project and the Director of the Qatar
Charity Office in Somalia attended the ceremony.
Dr Fawzia Abikar Noor praised the role of Qatar in assisting
Somalia, and highlighted Qatar Charity’s humanitarian efforts and
contributions to alleviate the suffering of those affected by famine and
disasters in all the regions of Somalia, expressing her gratitude for
these humanitarian efforts and the effective initiative to revive the
normal life in Somalia.
For his part, Hassan bin Hamza, hailed the continued Qatari
support for the humanitarian cause and praised Qatar Charity’s
humanitarian and developmental efforts in Somalia, pointing out that
such a project will contribute to the rescue of many lives, and cover a
part of the need of hospitals for ambulances.
Abdul Nour Haji, Director of the Qatar Charity Office in
Somalia, thanked the people of Qatar for their continuous support to the
people of Somalia to alleviate their suffering, by meeting their health
and relief needs and implementing development projects to make a
difference in the lives of the beneficiaries.
At the end of last year, the Qatar Charity Office handed
over medicines and medical supplies to the Mogadishu City Hospital as
part of the emergency relief project for the victims of the bombing to
minimize the serious impact of the accident.
IOM Partners with Americares to Provide Lifesaving Medical Supplies in Somalia
Somalia – IOM, the United Nations Migration Agency, has partnered with
Americares to donate more than eight tonnes of medical supplies, for
distribution across IOM project locations in Somaliland, Puntland, Lower
Juba, Gedo and Banadir regions. The supplies will immediately be
dispatched to IOM’s static and mobile clinics, to increase local access
to life-saving primary healthcare services.
Inadequate funding for healthcare continues to hinder the delivery of
life-saving health services to populations in need across Somalia. The
situation is further exacerbated by ongoing disease outbreaks including
Acute Watery Diarrhoea (AWD)/cholera and measles. In 2017, IOM provided emergency primary healthcare to over 470,000
beneficiaries. This is Americares’ seventh major shipment to Somalia to
tackle the drought and AWD/cholera outbreak. The shipments include more
than 190,000 litres of intravenous fluids, enough to treat 24,000
patients with AWD/cholera and other waterborne diseases. Americares responds to an average of 30 natural disasters and
humanitarian crises worldwide each year, establishing long-term recovery
projects and bringing disaster preparedness programmes to vulnerable
communities. IOM Somalia Chief of Mission Dyane Epstein stated: “Improving access
to medical supplies to ensure health facility stock outs are avoided is
of the utmost urgency to alleviate the impact of the current crisis.”
“The crisis in East Africa is one of the worst humanitarian
emergencies in decades,” said Americares Director of Emergency Response
Kate Dischino. “IOM and Americares are partnering to ensure families
have access to basic medicines and medical supplies, including
lifesaving cholera treatments.”
More than five million people in Somalia have limited access to
healthcare. The situation is worsened by a ravaging drought – the worst
in decades. In 2017, more than 60,000 AWD/cholera cases and 800 deaths
were reported in 52 districts across 16 regions of the country.
More than 150 Somali nationals have
benefited from medical treatment during an ongoing Kenya Defence Forces
(KDF) clinic at Afmadhow in the lower Juba Region of Somalia.
In Summary
More than 150 Somali nationals have in the past week benefited from
medical treatment during a Kenya Defence Forces (KDF) camp in Afmadhow
in the lower Juba Region.
This is despite continued efforts by Al-Shabaab militants to block Somalis from getting aid from AMISOM troops.
In January, the terrorist group destroyed a Hormuud communication mast in Elwak, Mandera.
Babies born in poorest countries still face alarming risks: Unicef; Somalia has a one in 26 chance!
WASHINGTON (AFP) - Babies born in the world's poorest countries, most
of them in Africa, still face "alarming" risks of death that can be 50
times as high as those in the richest countries, according to a Unicef
report released on Tuesday (Feb 20).
A midwife cutting the umbilical cord of a newborn baby in a ward of the public hospital of Yambio, South Sudan.PHOTO: AFP
While the last quarter-century has seen broad improvements in older
children's health, "we have not made similar progress in ending deaths
among children less than one month old," said Henrietta Fore, Unicef's
executive director.
"Given that the majority of these deaths are preventable, clearly we are failing the world's poorest babies."
The differences are stark. A baby born in Pakistan - the country with
the worst newborn mortality rate - faced a one in 22 chance of death,
while a newborn in Japan had only a one in 1,111 risk of dying, the
report said. Of the 10 highest-risk countries, eight are in sub-Saharan Africa,
countries where "pregnant women are much less likely to receive
assistance", due to poverty, conflict or weak institutions, according to
the report. Those eight countries are the Central African Republic (a one in 24
chance of death); Somalia, Lesotho, Guinea-Bissau and South Sudan (all
with a one in 26 chance); Cote d'Ivoire (one in 27) and Mali and Chad
(both with a one in 28 chance).
Each year, some 2.6 million babies do not survive through their first month.
PREVENTABLE DEATHS
The report was released in conjunction with the launch of a global
campaign, called Every Child Alive, aimed at ensuring "affordable,
quality health care solutions for every mother and newborn". More than 80 per cent of newborn deaths can be prevented, the report
says, "with access to well-trained midwives, along with proven solutions
like clean water, disinfectants, breastfeeding within the first hour,
skin-to-skin contact and good nutrition". But shortages of properly
trained health workers and midwives are a major problem in poorer
nations. While a rich country like Norway has 18 doctors, nurses and midwives for every 10,000 people, impoverished Somalia has only one. Every year, one million babies die the day they are born.
"We know we can save the vast majority of these babies with affordable, quality health care solutions," Fore said.
Somalia: Fascioliasis is suspected on goat deaths in Middle Shabelle
Fasciolosis is a well known worldwide and an important
helminthic disease of silvatic ruminants caused by liver fluke species
of the genus Fasciola, which is one of the most neglected diseases that can lead to human infection.
In a recent Radio Ergo report,
goat herders in Mahaday district of southern Somalia’s Middle Shabelle
region say they are losing many of their goats due to the liver
flukes. The report notes that some 4,000 goats have died from the
parasite during the past three months.
It is extremely difficult to verify such numbers, although experts
say that Fascioliasis alone would most likely not cause such high
fatalities, the report notes.
The livestock disease is reported in areas where the water has been contaminated after seasonal flooding of the river Shabelle. Fasciolosis infections in livestock can result in significant economic losses, from decreased productivity to mortality.
Fasciola hepatica, the common liver
fluke (also called the sheep liver fluke) is a flatworm belonging to the
Trematodes. Its final hosts are sheep, goats, cattle and other domestic
and wild mammals, including horses, dogs, cats and humans.
The common liver fluke occurs worldwide but
is particularly abundant in humid regions with temperate climate where
it can be endemic.
It is one of the most abundant and damaging
helminth parasites of grazing ruminants (sheep, goats, cattle). In
endemic regions 100% of the animals can be infected. It is particularly
harmful, even fatal for sheep. Prevalence and incidence in a particular
region depends strongly on ecologic and climatic conditions (e.g.
habitats for intermediate hosts and wild mammals, overwintering of the
parasites in the environment, etc.) and on livestock management
practices (stock density, grazing patterns, etc.).
Adult Fasciola hepatica Photo/Adam Cuerden via Wikimedia CommonsSource
Somalia to Probe Evictions of Thousands of Displaced Families
Photo file - Newly displaced Somali women queue with their malnourished
children as they try to receive medical treatment on outskirts of
Mogadishu on April 11, 2017.
The Somali government responded to
widespread criticism by aid agencies on Wednesday, promising to
investigate reports that thousands of families fleeing drought and
conflict were forcefully evicted from more than 20 informal camps.
The United Nations and groups such as the Somalia NGO Consortium say
more than 4,000 families, or about 20,000 people, had their homes
bulldozed last month inside settlements on the outskirts of the capital
of Mogadishu. The demolitions on private land were unannounced, they said, and
pleas by the community largely women and children for time to collect
their belongings and go safely were not granted.
Some aid workers who witnessed the evictions said uniformed government soldiers were involved in the demolitions.
“Regarding the forced evictions, we are really deeply concerned. We
are investigating the number of evictions,” Gamal Hassan, Somalia’s
minister for planning, investment and economic development, told
participants at a U.N. event.
“We have to make sure we investigate and have to make sure we know
exactly what happened. And then we will issue a report and you can take a
look at it and see what happened and how it happened,” he said by video
conference from Mogadishu.
The impoverished east African nation of more than 12 million people
has been witnessing an unprecedented drought, with poor rains for four
consecutive seasons. It has also been mired in conflict since 1991 and its Western-backed
government is struggling to assert control over poor, rural areas under
the Islamist militant group al Shabab. The U.N. says drought and violence have forced more than 2 million
people to seek refuge elsewhere in the country, often in informal
settlements located around small towns and cities.
The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA)
on Wednesday condemned the demolitions, and said the fate of those
evicted did not fit with the progress Somalia has made.
“Not only did these people lose their homes, but the basic
infrastructure that was provided by humanitarian partners and donors,
such as latrines, schools, community centers — has been destroyed,” said
Peter De Clercq, head of OCHA in Somalia, at the same event.
“I reiterate my condemnation of this very serious protection
violation and call on the national and regional authorities to take
necessary steps to protect and assist these people who have suffered so
much.”
Villagers in remote part of northern Somalia relying on traditional remedies in measles outbreak
Sawir/Kaydka/Ergo
Fifty one measles patients have been on their sick beds
in their homes in Yadagta area, 120 km north of Burao, Togdher region,
where there are no health centres. The patients, including children and elderly receive traditional medication in their homes as the area has no health centres. Mr. Muse Abokar Suudi, District Health Officer of (now called Saraar region), told Radio Ergo they
sent a team of medical staff to Yadagta, after the local administration
reported an outbreak of measles to the ministry.
The team found that 34 of the sick are children, who were not
vaccinated during the last vaccination round that was carried out two
years ago. The vaccinators did not reach out to the people in the rural
areas. Some of the sick include adults and children from families that were
recently displaced in the last six months, after the prolonged drought
was unbearable in their previous locations.
Mohamed Warsame Abdi’s children aged three and seven were infected
with measles. This drought-hit father told Radio Ergo by phone that he
could not afford the $30 he needed to take his children on the long
journey to a hospital in Burao. He suspected measles when he noticed symptoms including rashes and
fever. He said he had been taking the children out into the sun and
covering them with blankets in the hope that they would get better, but
it had not helped. However, they are now recovering after the ministry
doctors attended to them.
Since he migrated to Yadagta area six months ago, Mohamed said he had
not seen any health teams coming to conduct vaccinations. His family
used to own 90 goats, which all died in the drought. Mr. Muse said the ministry was working to contain the outbreak of
measles, which spreads easily through coughing and sneezing. They are
also conducting awareness campaigns among people in the rural areas,
where aid agencies do not reach.
Amina Osman Harbi, a mother in Yadagta, said her two children caught
measles around five days ago. She saw rashes, inflamed eyes, running
nose and constant fever. Her neighbours lost two children aged three and
four and she believes they could have died of measles. Amina explained that she was applying cooking oil and black seed oil
to reduce the symptoms but their recovery was still slow. This mother of
four said none of her children had been vaccinated against measles. She
had never seen vaccination teams in the area.
Shamsa Abdullahi Bybook: A champion for Somali women’s reproductive health rights
Mogadishu – Shamsa Abdullahi Bybook was a young nurse in her
twenties when she fled the mounting chaos and tensions of Mogadishu in
1989 to start a new life in the United Kingdom. She became an
experienced midwife at a North London hospital with a master’s degree
from Middlesex University and raised a family. But she never forgot Somalia. On her periodic visits to her homeland,
the mother of six was appalled by the poor medical facilities available
to young pregnant women and the numbers who died during childbirth.
“We saw the suffering the mothers were going through,” the
59-year-old native of Kismaayo recalls. “The babies were also dying
unnecessarily for (the lack) of a simple procedure called resuscitation
and oxygen.”
In 2016, she decided to do something about it. Shamsa and her husband
packed their bags and moved back to Mogadishu to found a maternity
hospital offering quality reproductive services to Somali women – the
Bybook Maternity Hospital. Shamsa fully realized the risks her homecoming entailed. She was
working in London as a part-time newsreader for the British Broadcasting
Corporation’s Somali language service when she was sent to Kismaayo on
assignment in 1997 and was briefly abducted by armed militia.
Within months of her return to Mogadishu, the maternity hospital
opened its doors in the Hodan district of the Somali capital in October
2017. It offers a wide range of inpatient and outpatient services that
include safe birthing, pediatric and childcare, female genital
mutilation counselling, diagnostic sonography, postpartum care and
infertility care.
“We decided to be different by focusing more on quality care. For
example, we ensured that no newborn baby dies for lack of oxygen or
resuscitation equipment or even incubators. This is important for the
country,” she observes, adding that she has also launched a campaign
touting the benefits of giving birth in a tub of warm water to reduce
maternal mortality rates.
The importance of high-quality medical facilities for Somalis cannot
be overstated. According to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF),
mortality rates among Somali children are amongst the highest in the
world. One out of every seven Somali children dies before their fifth
birthday, which translates into a death rate of 137 out of every 1,000
live births. Mortality rates for mothers are also high, with UNICEF
flagging that one out of every 12 women dies due to pregnancy-related
causes – a death rate of 732 out of every 100,000 live births.
The 45-bed Bybook Maternity Hospital records an average of 50 safe
deliveries each month and also treats newborns with breathing
complications. Word of mouth has spread the reputation of the hospital
far and wide, with pregnant women coming from towns as distant as
Afgooye and Jowhar.
“Due to our positive effort, many people now know about our
services,” notes Shamsa. “Even less educated mothers tell me they have
been told that we have special equipment that help mothers and their
newborn babies survive.”
However, the lack of effective regulation in Somalia’s health care
sector remains a source of constant concern for Shamsa. She blames poor
training and inadequate equipment for causing bodily harm and
unnecessary loss of life on a regular basis.
UNICEF notes that Somalia is plagued by inconsistent health care
delivery structures, with medical services provided by a mix of health
authorities, private entities and international and national
non-governmental organizations. The former nurse urges Somalis wishing
to improve the state of health care in their country to consider
medicine as a career option and expand the number of hospitals that can
save lives.
“My husband and I have left our children and our grandchildren to
have this (maternity hospital) and help the people who are in need of
our services,” she says.
“I would advise everyone who has that ambition
to go ahead with it because we have been through it. Do not stop, do not
become discouraged.”
When a cholera epidemic threatened to overwhelm
Somalia's heath-care system last year, a coordinated response by local,
regional, and international organizations contained the crisis and saved
countless lives. Somalia and other African states facing natural or
manmade disasters this year should seek to build on that success. Read more »
Somalis with mental health concerns are benefiting from St. Scholastica initiative which brings social work students to medical settings
Chris
Roemhildt, a student at the College of St. Scholastica, asks a question
during a class at Essentia Heath-St. Mary's about accessing medical
records. Roemhildt and fellow students are working on their Master's in
Social Work degrees, which includes an internship at Essentia in the
ROBUST program. Bob King / rking@duluthnews.com
As a social work intern in the Twin Cities, Najma Mohamed hears traumatic stories from her fellow Somali immigrants every day.
"These are clients
that are coming from war-torn countries," said Mohamed, 26, who came to
the U.S. when she was in her early teens. "They witnessed a lot of
violence, a lot of robbery, a lot of burning houses. ... I had one
client, she said she was raped by 10 men."
Her
desire to help people with such horrific backstories led Mohamed to
obtain a bachelor's degree in social work at The College of St.
Scholastica's St. Paul campus. Now, as she works toward her master's
degree from St. Scholastica, Mohamed is getting support from a program
for which the school received a federal grant of $1.3 million over four
years. The program goes by the acronym ROBUST, for Rural
Optimization of Behavioral Health for Underserved Settings, and it's
being used to support six-month internships for 20 St. Scholastica
graduate students in social work.
The buzzword for the program is
"integrated." It means placing social workers alongside other
professionals in helping clients with multiple needs.
"I really
hope to see this become a way of our practice where we have physicians
and nurses and social workers working cooperatively on a singular
treatment plan versus a handful of individualized treatment plans," said
Julie Seitz, clinical director at the Center for Alcohol and Drug
Treatment in Duluth.
Seitz already was working on her master's at
St. Scholastica when faculty member Paula Tracey encouraged her to apply
for a ROBUST internship. She did, she got it, and she's using it
particularly to look at ways to reach people outside of Duluth who are
seeking to overcome opioid addictions. That can include working to
help more rural physicians obtain the waivers needed for them to
prescribe medication to assist in recovery and providing counseling via
telehealth, said Seitz, who has worked at the Center for Alcohol and
Drug Treatment for almost 20 years.
Different perspectives
For
Colleen Wheeler of Chisholm, the internship has her working alongside
other health professionals at Fairview Range in Hibbing. Wheeler, 40,
has been assigned to several different departments since beginning her
internship shortly after the grant was awarded in October. The doctors
and nurses she works with are open to her views, Wheeler said.
"It's
really an environment of, 'I respect you, but this is my perspective,'"
she related. "'I see where you're coming from, but look at it this way
as well.'"
The biggest participant in the program is Essentia
Health, which has just begun training the 12 interns who will serve in
Duluth, Superior and Virginia, said Diane Holliday-Welsh, operations
administrator for emergency medicine and behavioral health. Essentia's
participation is driven by the emotional and behavioral baggage many
patients bring with them when they come to the hospital, Holliday-Welsh
said.
"Thirteen percent of our patients who present to our St.
Mary's Duluth emergency department are presenting with a mental health
concern," she said.
'The best thing'
A
ROBUST internship comes with a stipend of at least $10,000 plus
allowances for gas money and books, said Lee Gustafson, who chairs the
Department of Social Work at St. Scholastica. The money made a big difference to Mohamed, who worked hard to pay off the loans that helped her get a bachelor's degree.
"I
was able to pay off some of my tuition, and then as soon as I was
supposed to apply for loans, this was offered to me," she said. "It was
just like, out of nowhere, it was the best thing."
With a
population largely clustered in the Twin Cities, a student focused on
Somalis might seem an odd fit for a grant that begins with the word
"rural." But Gustafson said it does fit the program's emphasis on
disadvantaged groups. Also, he pointed out, their native Somalia is
largely rural. Most of the clients Mohamed sees have
post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, anxiety, or a combination of
the three, she said.
About 150,000 Somalis live in the U.S.,
according to a 2015 United Nations estimate, and more live in Minnesota
than in any other state. "They all come here," Mohamed said. "Even if
people come to other states, they end up moving here to Minnesota just
because they need the help from the community."
Extreme challenges
While
many of her peers chose to seek nursing careers, Mohamed opted for
social work because it deals with all aspects of a person's life, she
said. She feels especially called to her own community because it's a
population that's underserved and has experienced so much trauma. The
woman who was gang raped 25 years ago still experiences physical
effects as well as nightmares and flashbacks, Mohamed said. A man told
her he was restrained and beaten while being forced to watch other men
rape his wife. "Another client said, 'My two sons were shot right in
front of me.'" She's still learning how to help people who have
been through such extreme circumstances, Mohamed said. But she has
learned to keep her emotions under control as she listens.
"I have to remain strong, because that's the only way I can help them through it," she said.
Whether
in the state's Somali community, on the Iron Range or in a drug
treatment program in Duluth, participants in the ROBUST program say they
hope to be better-equipped to meet the broad needs of underserved
populations. "This grant goes far beyond the walls of any of our
health care organizations," Essentia's Holliday-Welsh said. "It's really
going to pay dividends for our community."
Warning Alarm on Public Health: Resistance to anti-tuberculosis drugs growing in Somalia
Gene
specialist Samira Alrahman Abrahim investigates samples in the
laboratory of the Hargeisa tuberculosis hospital. Photo: Joonas
Lehtipuu.
Finland
participated in the fight against the spread of tuberculosis (TB) in
Somalia already before the Somali Civil War in the 1980s. The war
complicated efforts to handle the tuberculosis situation, but efforts to
eradicate the disease is now continuing.
Idris Muser Walays, aged 55, is sitting on a hospital bed. He has been hospitalised for 40 days.
"I was very sick before I came to hospital. I couldn't walk and had breathing difficulties."
Idris
Muser Walays (aged 55) is treated for a serious tuberculosis in the
Hargeisa Hospital in Somaliland. Photo: Joonas Lehtipuu.
This
is the first time that Walays has been admitted to the Hargeisa
Tuberculosis Hospital in Somaliland. He has contracted a serious form a
tuberculosis, which has spread not only to lungs but also to all
internal organs. Difficult cases like the one Walays has can be treated
in only few hospitals in Somalia. Somalia is one of the high TB
burden countries (high burden country, HCB) in Africa. In 2016, more
than 14,000 people were diagnosed with the disease but many cases
continue to remain undetected. The Hargeisa Hospital treats over 2,000
patients a year. "Poor population groups are at increased risk of
TB infection, which is why the disease is common in Somalia.
Undernourishment, poor general health and poor living conditions make
people vulnerable to the disease and its spread." In many countries, the most vulnerable people, including the elderly, children and HIV-positive, contract the disease.
"In Somalia, the disease is often diagnosed among the adult population, which is exceptional," Abdullahi says.
Tuberculosis
is a droplet infection. One person with the bacteria may infect as many
as 15 others around him or her and these then pass on the disease to
others. In the end, all villagers may be affected. Abdi Yusuf Ahmed,
aged 85, came to the hospital to have treatment for tuberculosis for
the first time in his life. Ahmed tells that tuberculosis is endemic in
the village. "We saw many patients with tuberculosis who were
coughing but as we were not aware of how the infection is contracted we
didn't know to avoid them." During the Civil War, hardly any
health care was available in rural areas for decades. Misconceptions
about the disease were also common.
"In my childhood, parents told that people could contract the disease by drinking camel milk. We are wiser than that now."
Hargeisa Tuberculosis Hospital in Somaliland. Photo: Joonas Lehtipuu.
Increasing resistance to drugs is a cause for concern
Dr. Adam Abdullahi says that the biggest concern in Somaliland is the increase of drug-resistant tuberculosis.
"Our
hospital is the only one beside hospitals in the capital city of
Mogadishu and in Puntman state where drug-resistant tuberculosis can be
treated."
The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that the
incidence of multidrug-resistant tuberculosis in Africa is one of the
highest in Somalia. Over eight per cent of the new cases are
drug-resistant. Moreover, as many as 47 per cent of patients coming to
be treated for a second time carry a drug-resistant strain of the
disease. The main reason for the increase of the drug-resistance is
treatment with wrong medication and patients' failure to complete the
course of medication because of lack of knowledge or money. Tuberculosis
requires a long course of treatment, even for as long as over six
months. In a poor country, few patients can afford long treatments.
"We
treat approximately 300 patients with a multidrug-resistant form of
tuberculosis every year and manage to cure about 83 per cent of them,"
Abdullahi estimates.
The laboratory determines which strains are drug-resistant
Patients
must leave their shoes at the door and wear rubber shoes provided by
the laboratory. They must cover their hair under a cap and wear a
respiratory equipment and a disposable protective gown. No one is
allowed to walk into the TB laboratory located in the hospital area
without permission. A laboratory funded by the Finnish Physicians for
Social Responsibility (PSR) organisation functions as a national
reference laboratory. The laboratory staff diagnoses TB samples sent
from all parts of the country and determines which ones are
drug-resistant.
"Earlier laboratories' incapacity to determine
which cases are drug-resistant constituted the bottleneck for treating
patients. In the course of the past couple of years, treatment has
become much more effective because we know which drug suits the
patient," says Farhan Mohammed Osman, Assistant Manager of the laboratory.
According
to Osman, the laboratory has managed to step up its procedures thanks
to new, effective microscopes provided by Finland.
Minttu-Maaria Partanen The author of the article is a freelance journalist
FACTS: Results of Finland's anti-tuberculosis work
Finland
supported Somalia before the eruption of the Civil War in the 1980s. At
that time, there was a National TB programmes (NTP), which led to a
marked drop in the incidence rate. Finland's work to fight tuberculosis
was then considered to be among the most advanced in the entire African
continent.
Finland supports work to fight tuberculosis in
Somalia for example through the Physicians for Social Responsibility
(PSR) organisation.
The PSR diagnoses and treats TB patients in
the biggest tuberculosis clinics in Mogadishu and Hargeisa. In
Somaliland, the PSR maintains a national tuberculosis laboratory.
In 2016, the PSR was engaged in approximately 8 per cent of all TB cases that were diagnosed. 83 per cent of them were cured.