Edna Adan Ismail, Awarded an Honorary Doctorate by the London South Bank University
Edna
Adan Ismail (Nursing, 1956), who has been awarded an honorary doctorate in the
School of Health and Social Care, was the first Somali woman to study in the
UK, and the first to work as a qualified nurse. She is also Somaliland’s first
female politician, and has built her own teaching hospital and university, with
the aim of raising standards of healthcare and education in her homeland.
Growing up
"When
I was growing up in British Somaliland, girls didn’t go to school. My parents
were both literate, though, and our house was full of books. My father invited
the local boys to come and sit on our veranda after school, and hired a tutor
to help them with their homework. That’s where I first began to decipher the
mysteries of reading and writing. Eventually I was sent to school in Djibouti,
in French Somaliland, where my aunt was a teacher.
"My
mother’s female friends were worried that if I got an education, no one would
want to marry me. They couldn’t understand why I wasn’t happy to stay at home
and learn to cook like the other girls. I wanted to get educated, and I wanted
to run and play and climb trees like the boys. I proved them all wrong in the
end, as I did all those things and still ended up marrying the man who had been
the president of Somaliland!
Healthcare from an early age
"From
an early age, I worked alongside my father in his hospital. I'd go in and help
him during the school holidays, or whenever he needed an extra pair of hands.
There were no bandages, so one of my jobs would be to cut sheets into strips,
boil them, iron them and roll them up. If he had to go away, he’d leave me notes:
make sure they feed this child properly, or remove those sutures. I’d listen to
his frustrations too, about the lack of materials and poor facilities. I
promised myself that one day I would create the kind of hospital my father
would have loved to work in.
"I
came to London to study pre-nursing at the Borough Polytechnic in 1954. I had a
scholarship paid for by the British government. I’d never travelled further
than Djibouti before but I’d seen films and pictures of London and knew what it
looked like, although the sheer size and number of people came as a surprise.
My first home was in digs in Balham. The family had children around my age, and
one of the daughters taught me how to ride the buses and get around. I’m still
in touch with them today.
Specialisation
"Midwifery
was not my first choice of specialisation. I really wanted to specialise in
surgery. It was the one time I remember my father really questioning one of my
decisions. He said, yes, surgery is great. But what are you going to do for the
women back home in Somaliland who need you at the most vulnerable time in their
lives? And I thought, after all the opportunities I’ve had and the freedom I’ve
enjoyed, I should think about giving something back. I did Part 1 and fell in
love with midwifery.
"There
was never any question in my mind that I would come back to Somaliland. I was
very clear that the knowledge and experience I was gaining in England was for
the benefit of the people here. When I came back, there was a definite air of
optimism. The British had left, and Somaliland was independent. Still, the
infrastructure was virtually non-existent and no one knew what to do with a
female nurse, nor how to pay one – I worked for 22 months without a salary.
Getting into politics
"Becoming
the First Lady gave me an opportunity to be a role model. The assumption was
that I would give up working, but I didn’t. Many people thought I was doing a
great disservice to my husband, but he was always very supportive. It was
around this time – in the late 1960s – that I started training auxiliaries in
the hospital to take better care of the women. From there, I started inviting
girls who’d been my pupils back when I was a schoolteacher to come in and help
me. Their families didn’t want them to get involved with the patients. But
slowly, slowly, they began to get interested and excited by the possibilities.
Of that first group, five got scholarships to study in England, and three came
back to work here. That’s really how nursing in this country got started.
"How
do you build a hospital in a country with no infrastructure? You just get up
and do it. The Edna Adan Maternity Hospital is actually my second hospital –
the first, in Mogadishu in neighbouring Somalia, fell into the hands of the
warlords during the civil war. The fact that there was no infrastructure, and
that so many people doubted me, just made me more determined. I put everything
I had into it – all my savings from my years working with WHO, and the proceeds
from selling my jewellery and my car – plus donations from the local community
and from the diaspora worldwide. I always kept that picture in my mind of the
woman who is smelly, who is bleeding, who doesn’t have anywhere else to go.
That’s the person I want to help.
"I
was co-opted into becoming a politician. When I was first asked to become the
Minister for Social Affairs, I said no. My hospital had only been open for five
months, and I felt like a mother with a new baby. Then the new president got
his wife on the case and she used the magic words, remember, you’ll be opening
the door for other women. So I agreed to split my time 50/50. There were no
buildings, so we turned a floor of the hospital into the Ministry. From there,
I went on to become Foreign Minister.
"Now
we have 200 staff, and I’ve established a university too, with 1500 students.
We offer courses in nursing, midwifery, public health, nutrition, veterinary
health, pharmacy, laboratory and medicine– it’s very comprehensive. This is my
way of helping us develop and keep the talent we so desperately need in the
country, and stopping our young people falling prey to human trafficking and
terrorism. My next target is teacher training. We need to professionalise
teaching here, and make sure our children are getting a proper education.
On taking time off
"I
was born with a strong desire to fix things. Why should I have downtime? When I
need to recharge my batteries, I go out to my family’s camel farms and feed the
newborn calves – that’s very therapeutic. But I don’t take much time off."
I’m 81 this year, and I don’t have
time to waste. There are still so many things I want to do. Holidays can wait.
- Edna Adan Ismail
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