CORONAVIRUS: Taiwan to donate domestic COVID-19 vaccines to Somaliland

 Taipei, Dec. 28 (CNA) Taiwan announced Tuesday that it will donate 150,000 doses of the domestically developed Medigen COVID-19 vaccine to Somaliland, as part of its continued assistance to the self-governing East African state in combating the pandemic.

Head of the Taiwan Representative Office in the Republic of Somaliland Wu Chen-chi (吳鎮祺, right) and Somaliland Health Minister Hassan Mohamed Ali Gafadhi Photo courtesy of MOFA

The pledge was made after both sides signed an agreement on the vaccine donation on Monday in Somaliland, according to a Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) press release.

MOFA said the donation is to be made as Africa faces a huge wave of Omicron variant COVID-19 cases.

According to MOFA, the health authorities in Somaliland have recently granted emergency use authorization (EUA) to the Medigen vaccine.

Medigen is the only domestically developed COVID-19 vaccine that has received EUA from Taiwan's Food and Drug Administration, and its rollout in Taiwan began on Aug. 23.

So far, no other country has granted EUA to Medigen.

Medigen's COVID-19 vaccine is currently undergoing clinical trials in Paraguay, and has also been chosen to take part in the Solidarity Trial Vaccines platform, an international clinical trial platform co-launched by the World Health Organization.

Somaliland declared independence from Somalia in 1991 after years of conflict. It has offices in about a dozen countries, according to its foreign ministry's website, but does not have formal diplomatic relations with any nation.

In February 2020, Taiwan and Somaliland signed an agreement to establish reciprocal representative offices. Taipei opened its office in Somaliland on Aug. 17 that year, while Somaliland opened its office in Taipei the following month on Sept. 9.

(By Joseph Yeh)

Enditem/HY

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Legacy of hope: physio gives the gift of mobility to Somali children with club foot

 Osman Badiyow has pioneered the Ponseti method in his country, helping at least 350 children to walk – free-of-charge

It took the team three weeks to persuade Micraj, now six, that she could walk after their treatment.

Born with a club foot, which botched surgery did not improve, the little girl was understandably hesitant that things could change.

But the team at the Somali Red Crescent Society (SRCS)-run Mogadishu physical rehabilitation centre persevered. And her mother remembers watching her take her first, faltering steps.

“When we see something good, we say ‘Mashallah’ [God was willing],” Foos Artan Isse says, speaking to The Telegraph over Zoom from the centre. “I was so happy to see her walking. I felt like she has a future now.”

Micraj is one of hundreds of children treated by one remarkable man, Osman Ibrahim Mohamed, one of only four physiotherapists in the whole of Somalia.

In total, he and his team have helped 351 children to walk, free of charge, since establishing their clinic two years ago. They plan to reach 500 by the end of this year.

For Mr Mohamed, they are his life’s work.

“What will I leave after I die?” he says. “I have this. My dream is coming true.”

Mr Mohamed, who goes by the nickname Osman Badiyow, uses the Ponseti method for treating children with club foot – widely seen as the gold standard worldwide.

In fact, he pioneered the use of the treatment in his country.

Club foot is a common condition, first documented by Hippocrates in 400 BC, where babies are born with either one or both of their feet turning inwards.

Untreated, it is one of the leading causes of disability worldwide, with around 7.5 million people living with it globally in low and middle income countries.

It runs in families, and is caused by the Achilles tendon at the back of the foot being too short. It affects around 1 in 1,000 babies in the UK, including footballer Steven Gerrard. Nearly all are treated successfully and learn to walk, take part in physical activities, and wear regular shoes.

That is almost entirely due to the widespread use of the Ponseti method, which involves gently manipulating and stretching the foot soon after birth, and putting it in a cast, every week for five to eight weeks. A minor operation then loosens the Achilles tendon, and special boots worn overnight until a child is around five help prevent the condition returning.

Osman Badiyow is the first person to bring the treatment to Somalia, where basic services have been severely damaged by decades of war and insecurity.

His quest to bring the low-cost, low-resource method to his country has taken more than 20 years: he wrote his thesis on club foot while studying  in Tanzania in 1999, but it took until 2014 for him to get on a course that would teach him how to use it in reality.

In between, in his work at the SRCS, he and the team treated many club foot patients, but often without success despite many months of work.

“So I said to myself, Osman, you are missing something – maybe this Ponseti method is the one you can use to help the children,” he says.

He then wrote personally to Dr Ignacio Ponseti, the inventor of the method in the 1950s (he has since died), in a bid to get the training he needed.

I said, ‘I’m living in Somalia and we have a lot of children affected by club foot that we are trying to correct and we cannot help, and the mothers and children of Somalia are suffering. Can you help me get a course?’, he remembers.

Dr Ponseti, a Spanish-American physician, came through, finding a course for Osman in Iowa and sponsoring his journey; but his visa was denied by the United States authorities. Eventually, with help from a number of organisations, Osman managed to get on a course in Ankara, Turkey in 2014 - but the students were only allowed to practise on plastic models.

With the help of an organisation called Miracle Feet, a global nonprofit aiming to eliminate untreated clubfoot worldwide, and the Global CIubfoot Initiative, Osman was finally able to learn the method on real patients in 2016.

It takes several people to actually conduct the Ponseti method, so more training was needed for team members, including in Kampala, Uganda, over the next few years.

The clinic in Mogadishu officially opened in 2019, two years ago, backed by Miracle Feet, at the rehab centre run by the SRCS with funding from the Norwegian Red Cross.

But even then, the struggle was not over. The first patient Osman remembers treating was a little boy whose father, who lived in an IDP camp, did not believe could be helped. HIs grandmother brought him to the centre.

“The father said, this is God’s punishment… but then we saw that he had corrected it and he said thank you very much, I was not aware it could be helped,” says Osman.

For children with club foot who are untreated, there is a huge stigma; often, they do not attend school, work, or live as part of normal society.

If you get disability in Somalia, it is like going to hell,” says Osman. “Even able-bodied, they are suffering. So if you are disabled, it’s worse.

It is a hell experienced by many. Miracle Feet estimates that there are 25,000 people in Somalia with untreated clubfoot, and 800 babies born annually with the condition.

One of them was the daughter of the watchman at the SCRC rehabilitation centre where Osman works.

His name is Mohamud Fiidow Mohamud, and his daughter – now 7 – is Farhio. She had surgery elsewhere, which was then corrected and her condition treated by Osman.

“I feel lucky I knew about this,” Mr Mohamud says. 

“This little girl, her mother passed away when she was 14 days old. Then I had the special worry about her case,” he adds. “But when I got her help, she is now walking, helping herself, and I am very proud.” 

Farhio herself beams into the camera.  

When asked what she wants to be when she grows up, she does not hesitate.

“I want to be a doctor,” she says. 

Protect yourself and your family by learning more about Global Health Security

ByJennifer Rigby, GLOBAL HEALTH SECURITY CORRESPONDENT

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Mariam Noor: A Somali PhD student invents a ring for leaking heart valves

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Somaliland signs MoU with Chennai hospital

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As a nurse in Somalia, I know we need vaccines. Where are they?

In many ways, life as a nurse in Somalia is no different from the lives of millions of brave front-line workers across the world. We too care deeply about our patients, working tirelessly over the past two years despite nearly insurmountable challenges.

But where the differences do exist, they’re stark. And nowhere is this clearer to see than in the distribution of lifesaving oxygen, personal protective equipment (PPE), and vaccines during the pandemic.

In Somalia, the poverty rate is currently 73% and the average life expectancy is as low as 56. When COVID-19 hit, I was profoundly worried. I’ve been a nurse at Banadir Hospital, the country’s only maternal and child health hospital, for nearly six years. As the virus spread, we were inundated and overwhelmed. While working in difficult conditions and on scant resources is nothing new for many of us, this pandemic was different.

 Time and time again the main complaint we faced (and continue to face) was respiratory. Oxygen is vital to combat breathing difficulties that COVID-19 causes in seriously ill patients. They simply cannot survive without it.

Despite their best attempts, the Ministry of Health could only source oxygen from the few private plants in Somalia. To put this in context, a single patient can go through $1,200 of oxygen every 24 hours. Our stretched public health system could not keep up, and when the country’s oxygen supply ran dry, I had to turn deathly sick people away. We simply did not have the resources to care for them.

In late September 2021, the government put a cap on large gatherings, a sure sign that the virus is back. We feel this in the hospital too, as the beds in the COVID-19 ward are filling up.

Decades of civil war have left our public healthcare structures embryonic and fragile, and while positive steps (such as the new federal healthcare system) are moving in the right direction, access to medical services for the majority of Somalis is painfully out of reach.

In February 2021, the World Health Organisation estimated that more than half a million people in low- and middle-income countries were impacted by the need for oxygen treatment every single day. In Somalia, this problem persists. Ultimately, the international community has fallen short. Turkey and the WHO donated oxygen and other medical supplies, but they did not meet our massive needs.

The Somali private sector has filled some of the gap, sourcing oxygen cylinders from around the world. But relying on imports isn’t sustainable. The charity sector has also stepped up. Our country’s largest domestic NGO, Hormuud Salaam Foundation, recently fitted my hospital with Somalia’s first oxygen plant for public use. It provides the machinery to produce 1,000 cylinders of oxygen per week, each canister able to give a patient oxygen for around 8 hours. But even this is a temporary fix.

Only international governments hold the long-term solution to the pandemic in the form of access to vaccines. Like Israel, the US, and the UK begin providing third doses to their populations, it is hard not to feel abandoned. So far, global vaccine equity programmes have only delivered enough vaccines to inoculate 2% of Somalis. How is this equity?

I became a nurse to help those in need, but I also wanted to be a good role model. As a health professional in Somalia, making a difference to the next generation, I am lucky to be able to treat children and show them what opportunities there are, particularly for young girls.

But when I look at the vaccine disparity, I feel disheartened. To hear that more than 100 million vaccines are to be “thrown away”, unless global leaders urgently share surplus supplies with the world’s poorest countries, is a difficult pill to swallow.

The next wave is brewing. With the new oxygen plant, we are better prepared to hold the line this time, but without any vaccines forthcoming, millions of Somalis remain exposed. Just as many around the world in London, New York, and Wuhan stood on your doorsteps to applaud nurses in a time of crisis, I hope that the international community can support us during ours.

Deka Abdullahi Abukar

Deka Abdullahi Abukar is a nurse at Banadir Maternal and Child Health Hospital in Mogashidu, Somalia.

SOURCE

Taiwan donates oxygen generators to Somaliland

 Taipei, Oct. 5 (CNA) Taiwan has recently donated a batch of domestically produced oxygen generators to Somaliland, as part of its continued assistance to the self-governing territory in combating the COVID-19 pandemic.

Lou Chen-hwa (羅震華), the head of Taiwan's mission in Somaliland, presented the oxygen generators to Somaliland's health minister Hassan Mohamed Ali in a ceremony marking the latest donation on Oct. 3.

Receiving the donation, Ali thanked Taiwan for its assistance in improving the resilience of Somaliland's health care system in the wake of the pandemic.

Ali said government official and medical professionals had praised the quality of made-in-Taiwan supplies, further promising to utilize the contributions to their fullest in combating the virus.

Direct donations from Taiwan of PPE, PCR machines, antigen rapid tests, PPE, masks and now oxygen generators have proved a lifeline in the de facto independent territory of 3.5 million people.

"Taiwan has contributed more than 90 percent of COVID-19 supplies to Somaliland," the Republic of Somaliland Representative Office in Taiwan said in a statement issued in response to the latest donation.

Source

Qatar Red Crescent Society deploys surgical convoy to Somalia

 Doha: In cooperation with the Ministry of Health of Somalia, Qatar Red Crescent Society (QRCS) has launched a medical surgery for general and ENT surgery in Somalia.

At the cost of $150,023 (QR 547,584), this project is part of the year-round medical convoys program implemented by QRCS in poor countries to bridge the gap in resources required to provide adequate health care services for their populations.

The 15-day project aims to provide surgical services for patients with critical cases by hiring highly experienced surgeons from the country to perform general and ENT surgeries at the De Martini General Hospital in Banaadir, Somalia.

According to the action plan, the project involves performing surgeries for 200 poor patients, supplying some medical equipment for the host hospital to continue offering high-quality medical services after the project, and training the hospital’s local medical professionals as extra practice to improve their proficiency and ensure continuity of service in the target regions.

A team consisting of a general surgeon, ENT surgeon, anaesthetist, and perioperative nurse was deployed. So far, they have performed 79 clinical examinations and 24 operations, with two referrals to specialized centres for pathology tests.

Somalia lacks specialised medical services, particularly in general and ENT surgery. As a result, many people suffer health issues, especially those affected by conflict zones in Mogadishu and the outskirts.

In response to this humanitarian emergency, QRCS’s representation mission in Somalia launched this surgical convoy, hiring foreign surgeons to work with the local physicians to treat beneficiaries.

Source

Dr. Said Ibrahim: Northwell recruits Somali-born physician leader with 'incredible flair'

 Dr. Said Ibrahim knew a Division I college basketball scholarship was his ticket out of Mogadishu and into the medical career of his boyhood dreams.

So it was a blow when, three hours after he arrived in the United States, the coach who recruited him delivered a terse message:

"Here is a ticket back to Somalia."

The coach had expected his next center to be more than 7 feet tall. Ibrahim was 6-foot-8. Worse, he was too worn out to play well at his tryout immediately after his 48-hour journey to Cleveland State University in Ohio.

But the next morning, instead of boarding that flight, Ibrahim delivered a terse message of his own.

"I’m not going back," the 22-year-old told the coach.

Ibrahim proceeded to write his own ticket, first to community college, then to Oberlin College and Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine. Next came training at a Harvard Medical School teaching hospital and a career as an internal medicine doctor, National Institutes of Health-funded researcher, professor, and hospital executive.

This month, the 59-year-old Ibrahim takes over as senior vice president of Northwell Health’s medicine service line, supervising medical services provided by more than 1,000 doctors, 500 residents and fellows and 1,500 support staffers throughout Northwell’s 23 hospitals and hundreds of outpatient facilities. He also is chair of the departments of medicine at Long Island Jewish Medical Center, North Shore University Hospital in Manhasset,

and the Donald & Barbara Zucker School of Medicine at Hofstra/Northwell.

Ibrahim will have a particular focus on addressing health-care disparities, according to Northwell.

"He has the perfect mix of leadership experience, academic success and an engaging personality," Dr. Lawrence Smith, executive vice president and physician-in-chief at Northwell Health and dean of the Zucker School of Medicine, said in a statement.

Northwell’s recruitment of Ibrahim was the culmination of a national search, said Dr. David Battinelli, chief medical officer at Northwell. Ibrahim comes to Northwell from Weill Cornell Medicine, where he was professor of health care policy and research and senior associate dean for diversity and inclusion, among other roles. He also has taught at the University of Pennsylvania’s medical school and was chief of medicine at the Philadelphia VA Medical Center.

"He’s impeccably trained, and Northwell, given its size and scope, is very attractive to people who do health outcomes research," Battinelli said. Ibrahim, Battinelli said, has "an incredible flair for academics, education and research."

Ibrahim has known he wanted to be a doctor since he was a boy in a small town near Somalia’s border with Ethiopia, the third of 10 children of a police officer earning $100 a month, watching helplessly as family members died from preventable illnesses.

The few doctors who made it to his town, he recalled, "were exceptionally appreciated and admired, to be honest with you, and that left an impression on me."

Ibrahim’s first big break came when he was recruited from a United Nations-supported high school to Somalia’s national basketball team.

In 1984, he was invited to a tryout in Cleveland after his Somali coach visited the United States and told a university coach there, "there’s this tall guy who might be useful to you."

After he flunked the tryout, Ibrahim said to the coach, "I'm actually more interested in getting an education, so why don't we just forget about the basketball and allow me to go to school?"

The coach replied, "absolutely not," Ibrahim recalled.

A university spokesman, David Kielmeyer, said in a statement on Monday, "Cleveland State University is pleased to learn that things ultimately worked out for Dr. Ibrahim. We congratulate him on his many accomplishments and wish him all the best."

With no contacts in Cleveland, Ibrahim wandered the streets with $30 in his pocket, eventually finding his way to a federal immigration office. He was referred to the Legal Aid Society, where the attorneys couldn’t represent him because at the time he did not have a green card, but one lawyer — a man from West Africa — let Ibrahim stay in his home. Later, a couple who learned of his plight paid his tuition at a community college. He made the dean’s list and won an academic scholarship to Oberlin, where he met his future wife, Lee Erickson, a physician and health care executive.

The couple have two grown daughters and live in central Harlem. Ibrahim has never gone back to Somalia, since the civil war there makes it unsafe to return, he said. He became a naturalized United States citizen about 30 years ago.

Ibrahim has conducted NIH-funded research on health disparities for more than 20 years.

Northwell has a long tradition of serving a diverse population of patients in an egalitarian way, Ibrahim said. He said in addition to addressing health disparities — which he said occur by race as well as by socioeconomic status, gender and other factors — and seeking to provide health care in equitable ways, he also intends to focus on recruiting and mentoring diverse groups of medical students and health care professionals.

By doing so, he said, we make the profession reflective of the communities that we serve, and as a result, the communities that we serve would be more likely to trust us.

Source

A broken healthcare system has hampered Somalia’s efforts to cope with COVID-19

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UM Charles Regional Welcomes New Gastroenterologist

 

LA PLATA, Md. – Sagal Ali, MD, a physician with advanced training in internal medicine, digestive disorders, and liver diseases, is joining the University of Maryland Charles Regional Medical Group – Gastroenterology practice as the team of clinical providers continues to grow to meet the needs of the region’s patients.

Dr. Ali will work out of two convenient Southern Maryland offices located in La Plata and Waldorf, joining longtime provider Joseph R. Murphy, MD to offer increased availability for specialty gastroenterological services. She will also provide non-invasive medical procedures at the new Endoscopy Center located in the UM Charles Regional Medical Pavilion in La Plata near St. Charles Parkway, a fully-equipped facility offering leading-edge technology and comfortable accommodations for a wide variety of endoscopy procedures.

This is an exciting time for our gastroenterological team,” said UM Charles Regional Chief Medical Officer Joseph Moser, MD. “Dr. Ali is a great fit for the UM Charles Regional Medical Group - Gastroenterology practice and brings the experience needed to provide our local community with convenient care in the new Endoscopy Center.

Dr. Ali received her Doctor of Medicine degree from Morehouse School of Medicine in Atlanta after receiving her Bachelor of Science degrees in biology and psychology at Michigan State University. She completed an internal medicine residency at the University of Texas Southwestern and a digestive and liver disease fellowship at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas. Dr. Ali is also a part of many national organizations, including the American College of Gastroenterology, the American College of Physicians, the Student National Medical Association, and the American Medical Association.

As a first-generation Somali American and black female physician, Dr. Ali said she believes it is important to have representation in medicine because “we are a reflection of our community.” Dr. Ali also values offering diversity of care, noting that in her training she “had the privilege of working with a wide variety of patients including the underserved and veterans.”

Dr. Ali will be providing digestive-related medical care for patients of all ages, including acute illness, chronic conditions, and routine checkups, with the goal of guiding each patient to better gastrointestinal health. “I understand that each patient is different and feel that treatment plans should be individualized to reflect that,” Dr. Ali said.

“We’re thrilled to have Dr. Ali’s expertise here in our community,” Dr. Moser said. “Now we can reach even more patients and help them overcome any digestive discomfort quickly and effectively.”

Source

Medic Traces Kind Nurse who Saved his Life 30 Years ago

 MOHAMMED JUMA MOHAMED, a nurse in the US, came back to Kenya last month in search of the woman who treated him 30 years ago after he was badly burned by a house fire in Somalia. He spoke to BONIFACE MANYALA.

The 1991 civil strife in Somalia will be remembered for a number of things, including the displacement of many Somali citizens, who ended up in various countries across the globe. For Mohamed Jama Mohamed, when Somalia burst into flames in February 1991, a house he was in also burst into flames ignited by petrol that was being kept there. The fire burnt his body and completely changed his life.

Mohamed, who at the time worked with the ministry of Agriculture in his country, was being accommodated at his friend’s house in Jubaland. The friend sold petrol from his premises. On the day of the incident, Mohamed and his friend were pouring gallons of petrol into buckets when someone unknowingly walked into the room with a lamp, which caused a huge fire that severely burned Mohamed in the face, back, hands and stomach. He suffered about 35 per burns on the body.

To access medication, Mohamed needed to travel to Kismayu, about 70 kilometres away. He was also facing the challenge of transportation. Because the country had erupted into civil war, sounds of gunfire being heard everywhere and transportation from one point to another was critically affected. To get to Kismayu, Mohamed hitched a ride on a pickup truck belonging to fighters.

“They placed me on the floor behind the truck where I was lying as the truck was speeding to Kismayu in the middle of the night. It was very cold and I could feel my paining body freeze... I cried hard, I was in pain, the only thing I wished for was to death,” Mohamed recalled.

When they arrived in Kismayu, they found the hospital packed with people who were running away from their homes trying to get a safe haven and a possible escape to neighbouring countries through the port of Kismayu. The entire hospital compound was filled with people but had no nurses or doctors on sight.

“I did not know anyone in Kismayu and the hospital had been converted into a refugee camp. There was no doctor, no nurses and no form of treatment going on. I was in pain and my face was swollen. Someone approached me and asked if I could consider using a skin pain reliever ordinarily used by veterinary personnel on animals. I used it for a couple of days,” Mohamed says.

“We continued to camp at the hospital for days as the war worsened until one day we were told to go board a ship at Kismayu that would transport us to Mombasa in Kenya,” he says.
They were over 800 people aboard the ship, which took seven days to reach Mombasa but it did not dock because of clearance issues that needed to be sorted with the Kenyan authorities.

They sat and waited in the ship for 10 days. When they were finally granted permission to dock, it had been 17 days of serious pain for Mohamed and still without treatment. In Mombasa, the refugees were taken to Majengo. That is where Mohamed tried to get medication.

He was helped by a well-wisher to travel to Nairobi from where he was eventually taken to Isiolo by a friend, who lived in Eastleigh to seek medication.

“I ended up in Isiolo for treatment finding a young nurse who looked shocked at the severity of my burns but promised to support me until I could get well,” Mohamed says.

Because he could neither speak English well nor speak a word in Kiswahili, the nurse took him to a ward with a television set so that he would not feel lonely in the course of his treatment. Mohamed remembers that every morning the nurse would bring him fruits, insisting they were important for his recovery. By then, he had undergone surgery and skin grafting. Three months later, Mohamed was informed that he was ready to be discharged.

“Because I did not have any relatives around, she took me to her house, made me tea and escorted me to the bus station,” says Mohamed.

A few months later, Mohamed was lucky to be repatriated to the United States by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees where he settled and went back to college to study as a surgical technician and nurse.
Mohamed, who is currently a nurse at the University of Minnesota Medical Centre, is married and has four children.

Last month, he visited Kenya after 30 years to look for Florence Lintari, the nurse who treated him in Isiolo.
With links in both the US and Kenya, he finally found Florence, who retired in 2020 and currently lives in Machakos town. Her final work station was at Machakos Level 5 Hospital.

“I am so happy to meet her again after 30 years. She didn’t even know where I went to after I left Isiolo, so I came back to look for her and thank her for treating me and saving my life. In fact, she inspired me to take up a course as a nurse so that I can help other people,” says Mohamed.

He has since established a medical charity, Health Extension, Promotion and Training Organisation (Hepto) with its head office in Minnesota, US and branches in Ethiopia and Somalia. He says Hepto Kenya office will open its doors soon and Florence will be instrumental in its administration. 

Source

Inside Somalia-Turkey health relations

 The downfall of Somalia's military government in 1991 led to a series of crises for the Somali people in terms of security, the economy, and social services overseen by decaying government institutions and administrations. In the aftermath of national disasters and post-traumatic ripple effects, the situation is improving at a slow pace, although there is still much room for improvement and a long way to go.

Officials cut a ribbon during a ceremony to mark 10 years of Turkish and Somali relations, in Mogadishu, Somalia, Aug. 19, 2021. (AA Photo)

In modern and federal Somalia, the health system and social care are at the heart of the pressing issues of maternal and child deaths, substance abuse, increasing cancer rates and urbanization of the health sector.

The international community provided funds so Somalia can better provide services and develop but no significant progress was made in reconstructing and restructuring the Somali health care system.

Instead, widespread bureaucratic discretion and disorganization at various levels surrounded the health sector. In 2011, Turkey launched a new win-win-based approach to Somalia, after two decades of roadblocks and a health system in turmoil.

10 years of strategy

Today marks 10 years since Turkey's arrival in Somalia. In addition to lending its strategic vision, Turkey played an iconic role in providing services, massively so in the health sector through four categorical road maps.

The first point is physical infrastructure. One undisputable, big example is the Mogadishu Somali Turkey Training and Research Hospital in Somalia's capital, honorably known as Recep Tayyip Erdoğan Hospital. The hospital was constructed by the Turkish International Cooperation and Development Agency (TIKA) to international standards and serves as the country's most affordable medical provider with a 200-bed capacity. The hospital is equipped with intensive care units for adults and children, incubators, operating and delivery rooms, as well as radiology and laboratory units. Additionally, it serves as a center for scientific medical research and training for students and health professionals.

This brings us to Yardimeli Hospital run by the Turkish nongovernmental organization (NGO) Yardımeli Association. Active in the African region, the association's slogan is: “No more child mortality, no more death for mothers." Maternal and child mortalities are one of the biggest disappointments stemming from Somalia's health system. In this regard, Yardımeli Hospital became part of the solution by improving access to maternal and child health services.

Turkey's second point was to empower the health workforce. Somalia's workforce is urbanized and badly fragmented at both the national and regional levels, with a lack of qualified people to make up the health sector. With the vision of filling this gap, the Somalia-Turkey Research and Training Hospital began licensing doctors after they completed medical training and examinations under the guidance and protocols of the Turkish Ministry of Health.

These institutions have also contributed to the decrease in unemployment in the health sector. On an international note, Somali students studying health sciences are part of the Turkey Scholarships family, accelerated by the Presidency for Turks Abroad and Related Communities (YTB). The scholarship provides free education at all levels, accommodation, health insurance, and travel and living expenses.

Health as humanitarian relief

The third point focuses on health as humanitarian relief to respond to crises and human-made disasters prone to occur in Somalia, including outbreaks, droughts and terrorist attacks. Between July 2011 and mid-2012, a severe drought affected the entire East African region. Said to be "the worst in 60 years," the drought caused a severe food crisis across Somalia, Djibouti, Ethiopia and Kenya that impacted the lives of 9.5 million people.

During the drought, Turkey massively funded humanitarian relief and provided primary care services in drought-affected areas and communities. Furthermore, Turkey has been there when the country experienced its biggest bombings, when the biggest blast in Somalia's history occurred on Oct. 14, 2017, more than 30 critically ill patients were taken to Turkey and treated at hospitals in Ankara.

In 2020, Ankara shipped COVID-19 aid to Somalia’s capital Mogadishu to help combat the pandemic. A quote from Sufi philosopher Mevlana Jalaladdin Rumi was written on the boxes in both Somali and Turkish, reading: “There is hope after despair and many suns after darkness.”

The fourth point was health tourism. People seek medical treatment abroad for many reasons, some due to a lack of advanced health care being available, while for others – even in more developed nations – the necessary care remains out of budget. With most of its hospitals accredited by Joint Commission International, Turkey is a leading actor in the health tourism industry due to its highly advanced technology, affordable care, qualified doctors and approach to health policy.

Today many Somalis have traveled to Turkey for medical tourism since the signing of the contemporary agreements between Mogadishu and Ankara, whereas in the past most would seek medical treatment in India. While receiving treatment, these patients play an important role in Turkey's economic development and its Health Tourism Vision for 2023. This may also be a good example of a win-win deal between Somalia and Turkey.

Connecting the dots to reach the final point, health systems are contingently reshaped and improved through lesson-learning and experience-sharing between countries. A strategically and resourcefully sound country, Somalia can contextually and pragmatically emulate Turkey's example of radical health sector transformation while maintaining local contexts and dynamics when designing its health system.

This could initiate a new era for advanced relationships in health care, breaking from the status quo that health cooperation is limited to humanitarian and economic circumstances.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

PhD candidate in Health Management, Ankara University

Source

Dr. Anisa Ibrahim among Great Immigrants, Great Americans

 Ibrahim escaped the civil war in Somalia as a child, and went on to head the pediatrics clinic at Harborview Medical Center

Dr. Anisa Ibrahim examines a baby at the Harborview Medical Center Pediatrics Clinic, Susan Gregg

Somali-American pediatrician Dr. Anisa Ibrhahim, who now directs the Harborview Medical Center Clinic where she and her siblings received care as children, has been honored by the Carnegie Corporation of New York. She is among the 2021 Great Immigrants, Great Americans named today.

On July 4, photos of this year’s honorees will appear in a full-page public service announcement in the New York Times.  Their images and bios also will be featured on kiosks throughout the New York City’s Independence Day fireworks display viewing areas.

This year’s group of 34 honorees represent more than 30 countries of origin. Their selection emphasizes service to society in a wide variety of fields, from medical providers and researchers, to social justice advocates, to leaders in industry, literature and journalism, entertainment and other areas.

While celebrating the nation’s freedom from outside rulers, The Fourth of July is also traditionally a day for welcoming new naturalized citizens and honoring the many contributions of immigrants to America.

Somali-American Dr. Anisa Ibrahim is a UW School of Medicine alumna and a current faculty member.

Ibrahim came to the United States in 1993 when she was six-years-old.  Her family had fled the civil war in Somalia, and spent time in a refugee camp in Kenya.  There, as a young girl, Ibrahim had witnessed poverty, malnutrition and disease, including seeing her sister contract measles during an outbreak.  After her family settled in Seattle, Ibrahim and her siblings received their pediatric care at Harborview Medical Center.

The staff at the clinic recognized her firm determination and encouraged her dream of becoming a physician.  Among them was Dr. Elinor A. Graham, now an associate professor emeritus of pediatrics at the UW School of Medicine. Like Graham, Ibrahim wanted to provide medical care and build community support for children from immigrant, refugee, and minority populations, and from low-income families.

Ibrahim recently told NBC Nightly News that she sees her own background as helping her relationships with her young patients and their families, particularly in providing insights into the lives of those whose experiences mirror her own.  She believes it is important to be deeply respectful and welcoming to everyone.

“Millions of refugees were not given the opportunities I was given,” Ibrahim said. “If they were, they could do wonderful things.”

Ibrahim graduated from the University of Washington School of Medicine, and did her residency training in pediatrics here as well. In 2016 she joined Harborview Medical Center as a general pediatrician, and in 2019 was appointed director of its pediatrics primary-care clinic.  She also holds an appointment at Seattle Children’s, and is a clinical assistant professor of pediatrics at the UW School of Medicine.

The Carnegie Foundation of New York established the Great Immigrants, Great Americans tribute to honor the legacy of founder Andrew Carnegie, a Scottish immigrant to the United States, by annually recognizing an extraordinary group of naturalized citizens who have made notable contributions to the progress of American society. The program has now honored more than 600 outstanding immigrants.

According to the Foundation’s announcement today, immigrants make up about 14 percent of the U.S. population. Ten years ago, the Foundation joined with other philanthropies to establish the New Americans campaign to provide free legal assistance to permanent residents during the lengthy process of seeking U.S. citizenship.

 

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