In the middle of July, 2014, a significant medical accomplishment took
place in a town called Badhan (ba-dh-an) that is located in the Northeast of Somalia.
On that day, the first Cesarean operation in the region was successfully
performed at the Badhan Community Hospital.
A Cesarean operation hardly raises an eyebrow in most of the
world but Badhan and its environs are not the rest of the world. The Cesarean
operation augured consequential improvement in healthcare availability for the
whole community and a significant improvement in health outcomes for the women
and children of the region.
The town of Badhan and its surrounding villages are home to
a population approximated at around fifteen thousand. For centuries, area
residents prospered by engaging in a profitable trade with their neighbors on
the Arabian side of the red sea. Residents exported Frankincense and livestock
and imported clothing and foodstuffs that they traded to the residents of the
interior of the country. A twenty two year economic embargo imposed in 1969 by
the former Somali government completely wiped out the areas centuries’ long thriving
export/import trade. When Somalia’s central
government collapsed in 1991, the area was in a decidedly much worse shape than
it was in 1960 when Somalia gained independence; there were no paved roads in
the region, no factories, no institutions of higher learning and only one high
school. Badhan community hospital was the
sole healthcare facility in the region. The Hospital was built in 1977 but the
government never assigned a doctor or adequate nurses, so the facility was a
hospital in name only. The facility was
closed in 1991 when Somalia’s central government collapsed. Community leaders attempted to reopen it
numerous times
In the winter of 2009, a Somali-Canadian, Asha Ahmed, while
on a visit to Somalia was traveling from Badhan to Bosaso, the capital of
Somalia’s Eastern region. The distance
between the two cities is 68.6 miles-roughly the same distance between Hartford
and Stamford, Connecticut. But while it takes an hour and some minutes to travel
between the two Connecticut cities, the journey between the two Somali towns is
more than eight hours. Throughout the tedious journey on the bed of a lorry, a
five month old girl was incessantly crying while being held by her grandmother.
One of the passengers asked the elderly lady as to what was ailing the child.
The grandmother replied that the family thought that an ear infection was the cause
of the child’s pain and added that she was taking the child to a doctor in
Bosaso.
The incessant and plaintiff cry of the sick infant left an
indelible imprint in Asha’s mind. While she was well aware of the area resident’s
difficulties in obtaining medical care, the child’s distressing condition
crystalized for her the necessity for immediate action in addressing the communities’
healthcare needs.
Upon returning to Canada, Asha embarked on a campaign to
reopen the Badhan hospital. She traveled throughout Canada and held informational
cum fundraising meetings with the large Somali immigrant community that settled
in Canada in the mid-1990s. She also
reached out to Somali immigrants in the United States, England and the rest of
Europe. That first campaign netted $5000.
Asha returned to Somalia at the end of 2009 via the United
Arab Emirates. While sojourning at Emirates, she continued to spread the gospel
about the Badhan Hospital. Moved by her presentations, a family from Dubai donated
$5000 to rehabilitate the hospital building and also offered $3000/month toward
the salaries of a Doctor and other hospital staff. Asha returned to Somalia
armed with $10,000.00 and with the help of the community leaders began work on
rebuilding the hospital.
Local volunteers donated sweat equity and with the donated
money she was able to purchase needed supplies to complete a unisex inpatient facility,
exam room and few offices.
Badhan Hospital was reopened on 3/1/2010 to a great fanfare with
a staff of 24 including a Doctor, 2 nurses, four nurse aids, treasurer and a
manager. The hospital has noticeable difference in the quality of the life of
the residents. With remittances from sons
and daughters employed abroad and people from across the world, separate
inpatient units for women, children and men have been added to the hospital; an
x-ray department, emergency unit building, water storage tank, a lounge for the
nursing staff and outpatient units have been added in the last three years. These
expansions were made possible by donations ranging from $50 to $500 from around
the world, including Custodians from Minnesota, Immigrant taxi drivers Canada,
a nurse and a custodian in Connecticut, Truck drives from Washington, white color
professionals from Massachusetts, retired individuals from Minnesota, housewives
from England, day laborers from Australia, business persons in the Gulf states
and so many others. Volunteers doggedly undertook a successful fundraising campaign
using every possible means of reaching probable donors- telephones, emails,
home visits, using friends and relatives as conduits. An elderly gentleman in
Minneapolis became so associated with the collections of donations, the story
goes that some people attempt to avoid him at any cost, including changing
telephone numbers and abandoning streets when they see him coming.
In July of 2014, a second doctor, an OBGYN, was added to
hospital’s staff. Although her salary is still been laboriously collected by a
very dedicated group of men and women scattered across the globe, the addition
of another doctor, especially an OBGYN, was a significant progress for the
community. Prior to the OBGYN’s hiring, women who developed complications while
giving birth were placed in an ambulance for a journey on an unpaved rough
roads of over 60 miles to the nearest hospital with an OBGYN. Area women do not face this ordeal anymore; from
July to December 2014, seven Cesarean operations have been successfully
performed at the hospital.
Badhan Hospital and its community have achieved tremendous
success but they are not out of the woods yet as the community has not been to
obtain a reliable source of income to pay the OBGYN; However, the hospital and the
community took giant steps forward and these successes are a testament to the dogged
determination of one person and the resourcefulness of a community.
