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Finnish Somali Nurses Save Lives in the Hospitals of Somalia
A serious shortage of equipment and medicine, no running water. Used needles on the floor and deficiencies in hand washing.
Many nurses trained in Finland are shocked by the shortcomings of Somali hospitals. Due to many shortcomings, it has not been possible to treat some diseases, such as cancer or serious infectious diseases, at all.
Finnish Somali nurses have participated in the reconstruction of Somalia's health sector for more than 10 years.
Anna-Maija Aguilera-Pesä, working as a project coordinator at IOM Finland, says that the local conditions have come as a shock to many. However, the results have been remarkable.
The blog text was originally published in the World Pulse blog of the Association of Nurses.
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I have been coordinating the MIDA FINNSOM project of the International Organization for Migration for almost eight years now, and through our project 173 healthcare professionals have already returned temporarily to their old homeland to rebuild the health sector.
Project experts are recruited internationally from representatives of the Somali diaspora. About 30% of them have been Finnish Somalis. The largest single professional group has been nurses.
The International Organization for Migration (IOM) has been running MIDA FINNSOM projects for 10 years. The projects are financed from the development cooperation funds of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Finland.
The purpose of the projects is to support the development of Somalia's healthcare and education sector by recruiting mainly Finnish healthcare and education professionals of Somali background for usually one- to one-and-a-half-year employment periods in their former homeland.
The Workforce Has Been Essential
In Somalia, which is ravaged by a civil war, health care suffers from a serious lack of resources. The staffing shortage is huge in every professional group.
There are only three doctors, eleven nurses and three midwives per 100,000 people. Although new nurses have been trained in recent years, it is difficult to recruit qualified personnel to public hospitals due to low pay, poor working conditions and security threats. The situation is further complicated by the fact that there are only 0.76 health care units per 10,000 people in the country.
The lack of personnel and resources, as well as the uncertainty caused by conflict and poverty make statistics grim. Maternal mortality in Somalia is among the highest in the world. For every 100,000 live births, 732 mothers die and only 15% give birth assisted by a professional. Infant mortality is also very high; one in seven children dies before the age of five. In our project, special attention is paid to the development of women's and children's health services.
The experts who go to work through us help fill the country's huge healthcare labor shortage, but above all they export skills and know-how to local professionals. The level of education and skills of local employees can vary very much, and in the course of 10 years, the professionals who worked on the project have already trained more than 7,000 local employees.
In addition to training locals, the nurses have worked in many different tasks. Most have done clinical work in public hospitals in different regions of Somalia, but nursing experts have also worked as advisors in health ministries and as teachers in nursing schools and universities. Furthermore, nurses have participated for example in the development of strategies, plans, standards and teaching.
Thanks to this work, more and more babies and mothers stay alive, and more and more people get the care they need now and in the future.
Difficulties in Adaptation and Big Wins
Leaving for Somalia has not been easy.
Most of the Somalis in Finland who participated in the project came to Finland as refugees in the early 90s and then acquired education and professional qualifications in Finland. Some of the nurses with a Somali background have come to Finland as toddlers and have returned to Somalia for the first time through our project.
Some of our employees have been treated as foreigners and with suspicion. Everyone has had to experience some kind of a culture shock.
In some cases, local employees have feared that diaspora experts will take their jobs, and integration into the local work community and gaining trust has taken considerable time. Our project aims to have the experts working on site for at least a year.
The nurses who worked in the project have shown remarkable tenacity and the amount of their motivation never ceases to amaze me. Persistence has also paid off: the results of our project speak for themselves.
The First Dental Clinics and Caesarean Sections
Thanks to the project, the country's first dental clinics, dialysis wards and newborn wards have been established in northern Somalia, and the operation of maternity wards has been developed.
The newborn mortality rate in Hargeisa hospital has decreased from 24% to 5%. Childbirth services are available in Hargeisa around the clock. Nurses are trained to perform caesarean sections as well.
In Puntland, the death rate of newborns at Garowe Hospital dropped from 70 deaths to two per month.
During the drought that hit Somaliland, a mobile team of professionals traveled to drought-affected areas and provided health checks and health counselling to local residents and IDPs.
At Yardimel Hospital in Mogadishu, southern Somalia, the number of safe births increased from 28 monthly to over 200 in just one year. Many more patients can be admitted: in July 2017, there was room for only 800 patients, in 2018, the hospital could accommodate 4,000 patients at a time.
The hospital offers free aid to internally displaced people, the poor, and patients with multiple chronic illnesses. About half of the hospital's patients are from such vulnerable groups.
The professionals working in the project have also developed a medical curriculum that is in use at the only public university in southern Somalia. The university had been closed for three decades due to bombing.
Although we have achieved great results, much work remains to be done. The plan is that by 2022, another fifty experts will go to work as part of the project. Everyone contributes to building a stronger future for Somalia.
Twitter: @aaguilera18
The writer works as a MIDA FINNSOM project coordinator at IOM Finland.
The views expressed by the authors in IOM Finland's blog are their own and do not necessarily reflect the official views of the International Organization for Migration.
Briefly about the Project: 10 Years of Work with Diaspora
-
The Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland has financed MIDA FINNSOM projects in Somalia for 10 years. Read the project's 10 year anniversary publication.
-
The first phase of the MIDA FINNSOM Health and Education project started in 2015 and the second phase of the project ends in 2022. The project operates in southern Somalia.
-
The MIDA FINNSOM Health project started with a pilot phase in 2008 and now the IV phase of the project ends in 2020. The project operates in Somaliland.
-
During the 10 years of MIDA FINNSOM, the projects have recruited 173 diaspora experts to work in ministries, universities and hospitals. About 30% of the participants in the program have been Finno-Somali. In addition, experts have come from the USA, Canada, the UK and other countries.
-
The central goal of the MIDA FINNSOM programs is the transfer of knowledge and the building of local capacity and the public sector in Somalia.
-
Central to the projects is strong local ownership and close cooperation with local ministries, which decide the target institutions and participate in the recruitment of diaspora experts.
-
The first Somali refugees arrived in Finland in the early 1990s. Currently, there are approximately 20,000 people of Somali background living in Finland.
-
The Nurses' Association has been a partner of the MIDA FINNSOM project and a member of the expert panel from the beginning.
Related Blogs
A serious shortage of equipment and medicine, no running water. Used needles on the floor and deficiencies in hand washing.
Many nurses trained in Finland are shocked by the shortcomings of Somali hospitals. Due to many shortcomings, it has not been possible to treat some diseases, such as cancer or serious infectious diseases, at all.
Finnish Somali nurses have participated in the reconstruction of Somalia's health sector for more than 10 years.
Anna-Maija Aguilera-Pesä, working as a project coordinator at IOM Finland, says that the local conditions have come as a shock to many. However, the results have been remarkable.
The blog text was originally published in the World Pulse blog of the Association of Nurses.
***
I have been coordinating the MIDA FINNSOM project of the International Organization for Migration for almost eight years now, and through our project 173 healthcare professionals have already returned temporarily to their old homeland to rebuild the health sector.
Project experts are recruited internationally from representatives of the Somali diaspora. About 30% of them have been Finnish Somalis. The largest single professional group has been nurses.
The International Organization for Migration (IOM) has been running MIDA FINNSOM projects for 10 years. The projects are financed from the development cooperation funds of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Finland.
The purpose of the projects is to support the development of Somalia's healthcare and education sector by recruiting mainly Finnish healthcare and education professionals of Somali background for usually one- to one-and-a-half-year employment periods in their former homeland.
The Workforce Has Been Essential
In Somalia, which is ravaged by a civil war, health care suffers from a serious lack of resources. The staffing shortage is huge in every professional group.
There are only three doctors, eleven nurses and three midwives per 100,000 people. Although new nurses have been trained in recent years, it is difficult to recruit qualified personnel to public hospitals due to low pay, poor working conditions and security threats. The situation is further complicated by the fact that there are only 0.76 health care units per 10,000 people in the country.
The lack of personnel and resources, as well as the uncertainty caused by conflict and poverty make statistics grim. Maternal mortality in Somalia is among the highest in the world. For every 100,000 live births, 732 mothers die and only 15% give birth assisted by a professional. Infant mortality is also very high; one in seven children dies before the age of five. In our project, special attention is paid to the development of women's and children's health services.
The experts who go to work through us help fill the country's huge healthcare labor shortage, but above all they export skills and know-how to local professionals. The level of education and skills of local employees can vary very much, and in the course of 10 years, the professionals who worked on the project have already trained more than 7,000 local employees.
In addition to training locals, the nurses have worked in many different tasks. Most have done clinical work in public hospitals in different regions of Somalia, but nursing experts have also worked as advisors in health ministries and as teachers in nursing schools and universities. Furthermore, nurses have participated for example in the development of strategies, plans, standards and teaching.
Thanks to this work, more and more babies and mothers stay alive, and more and more people get the care they need now and in the future.
Difficulties in Adaptation and Big Wins
Leaving for Somalia has not been easy.
Most of the Somalis in Finland who participated in the project came to Finland as refugees in the early 90s and then acquired education and professional qualifications in Finland. Some of the nurses with a Somali background have come to Finland as toddlers and have returned to Somalia for the first time through our project.
Some of our employees have been treated as foreigners and with suspicion. Everyone has had to experience some kind of a culture shock.
In some cases, local employees have feared that diaspora experts will take their jobs, and integration into the local work community and gaining trust has taken considerable time. Our project aims to have the experts working on site for at least a year.
The nurses who worked in the project have shown remarkable tenacity and the amount of their motivation never ceases to amaze me. Persistence has also paid off: the results of our project speak for themselves.
The First Dental Clinics and Caesarean Sections
Thanks to the project, the country's first dental clinics, dialysis wards and newborn wards have been established in northern Somalia, and the operation of maternity wards has been developed.
The newborn mortality rate in Hargeisa hospital has decreased from 24% to 5%. Childbirth services are available in Hargeisa around the clock. Nurses are trained to perform caesarean sections as well.
In Puntland, the death rate of newborns at Garowe Hospital dropped from 70 deaths to two per month.
During the drought that hit Somaliland, a mobile team of professionals traveled to drought-affected areas and provided health checks and health counselling to local residents and IDPs.
At Yardimel Hospital in Mogadishu, southern Somalia, the number of safe births increased from 28 monthly to over 200 in just one year. Many more patients can be admitted: in July 2017, there was room for only 800 patients, in 2018, the hospital could accommodate 4,000 patients at a time.
The hospital offers free aid to internally displaced people, the poor, and patients with multiple chronic illnesses. About half of the hospital's patients are from such vulnerable groups.
The professionals working in the project have also developed a medical curriculum that is in use at the only public university in southern Somalia. The university had been closed for three decades due to bombing.
Although we have achieved great results, much work remains to be done. The plan is that by 2022, another fifty experts will go to work as part of the project. Everyone contributes to building a stronger future for Somalia.
Twitter: @aaguilera18
The writer works as a MIDA FINNSOM project coordinator at IOM Finland.
The views expressed by the authors in IOM Finland's blog are their own and do not necessarily reflect the official views of the International Organization for Migration.
Briefly about the Project: 10 Years of Work with Diaspora
-
The Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland has financed MIDA FINNSOM projects in Somalia for 10 years. Read the project's 10 year anniversary publication.
-
The first phase of the MIDA FINNSOM Health and Education project started in 2015 and the second phase of the project ends in 2022. The project operates in southern Somalia.
-
The MIDA FINNSOM Health project started with a pilot phase in 2008 and now the IV phase of the project ends in 2020. The project operates in Somaliland.
-
During the 10 years of MIDA FINNSOM, the projects have recruited 173 diaspora experts to work in ministries, universities and hospitals. About 30% of the participants in the program have been Finno-Somali. In addition, experts have come from the USA, Canada, the UK and other countries.
-
The central goal of the MIDA FINNSOM programs is the transfer of knowledge and the building of local capacity and the public sector in Somalia.
-
Central to the projects is strong local ownership and close cooperation with local ministries, which decide the target institutions and participate in the recruitment of diaspora experts.
-
The first Somali refugees arrived in Finland in the early 1990s. Currently, there are approximately 20,000 people of Somali background living in Finland.
-
The Nurses' Association has been a partner of the MIDA FINNSOM project and a member of the expert panel from the beginning.