East Bardera Mothers and Children's Hospital

East Bardera Mothers and Children's Hospital

East Bardera Mothers and Children's Hospital (EBMCH) is a women's and children's hospital located in Bardera, Somalia. The hospital is a non-profit institution helping women and children in Baardheere, Gedo, Somalia. The EBMCH was started by a concerned individuals based in North America. The hospital known to locals as "Isbitaalka Bariga Baardheere", is managed by local nurses and one of the most experienced midwives in the District of Bardera of Gedo Region in Somalia.

Caring medical team and safe medicine from safe markets in Canada and United States, make East Bardera Mothers and Children's Hospital one of the most organized hospitals in Somalia.

Staff at EBMCH, women make up 75% of the staff and this makes a hospital of its own league in Somali hospitals. Women feel safe and comfortable receiving medical advice and treatment from women medical staff.

History

EBMCH in Baardheere, Somalia was established in May 2006. Bardera didn't have anything resembling maternity hospital for the longest time before EBMCH came into the picture. Bardera is the home of the largest district and most populous city in Gedo Region.

UN agencies such as WHO, UNICEF and other international NGOs such MSF have supported the health-care services which are carried out in Bardera District. Just as recently as 2007, Medicines Sans Frontier (MSF) of Spain, has tried to man, equip and re-supply the main Bardera Hospital which was out of service since 1994. Some armed militias have obstructed this noble cause. EBMCH and two other MCHs with even lesser rescources have been the only medical centers serving Bardera city. The majority of medicines, medical supplies, and information comes from friends of the hospital who live in the United States and Canada. The hospital has some of the most up-to-date equipment in all of the MCHs in Bardera City. The general hospital which served the community during the previous 40 years, was demolished with the central government in 1991.

Well-trained medical staff who are working towards the same goal and safe medicine from Canada and US is making East Bardera Hospital one of the best managed expanded MCHs in Somalia. All of the beds in the hospital were welded by a local entrepreneur, and as expansion is sought to further serve the community, more supplies will be bought from the community business people.

Creation of Bardera Maternity Hospital

East Bardera Mothers and Children's Hospital was envisioned to be a step-by-step and long-term oriented medical facility where basic medical needs of Gedo's largest city would be met. With the support of a few friends, including Dr. Aden Loyan and trained nurses, EBMCH founder Zaila Sheikh Dini Jama is able to pay all the expenses of EBMCH including medicines and medical supplies, rent for facilities, and staff salaries.

Zaila retells a story of a woman who in early 2006 had received financial support from overseas family members and after a relatively normal pregnancy, gave birth and almost died from ensuing bleeding, receiving no immediate medical advice and no recovery help of any kind in Bardera. Zaila then asks, "Imagine, what other women in similar situations are going through across Somalia and in Bardera?"

The woman in the story, "How EBMCH Started", could have purchased medical supplies such as supplements long before she got weak and could have also gotten nutritional advice, but there was no maternity hospital in Bardera at the time. Zaila concluded other women were suffering many times worse. Therefore, he set out to create EBMCH with few thousand dollars on hand. First, as a maternity hospital, and second, as a place with knowledgeable staff who can offer all the possible medical services to the community. To locals, EBMCH is more than a place for women and children. All sorts of people seek medical services from EBMCH. Among other things, unexpiried medicines and reliable midwifery services are some of the best liked services and attractions at EBMCH.

Correct nutritional information and basic prenatal services will go a long way for pregnant women in Bardera as food is mostly available in the largely farming town. Over 96% of households in Bardera purchase their household food needs. [http://www.fsausomali.org/uploads/Other/775.pdf]

Maternity Services at East Bardera Hospital

Women in Bardera now get the advice of trained nurses and midwife. Few hospitals in Somalia offer maternity and children's services. Most hospitals in Somalia are concerned with wounded people from war zones. Bardera Mothers and Children's hospital was established to give women and children the care they deserve. Expecting mothers and nursing women also get reliable supplements and medicines as well as medical advice throughout the pregnancy and after the child is born. The EBMCH has a pharmacy and supplies are being are imported from Canada and the US with the help of EBMCH friends as well as local NGOs. The Bardera Red Crescent donated supplements to the EBMCH, and the UNICEF arm based in Nairobi gave some medical supplies to the EBMCH in early 2007.

EBMCH as a maternity hospital

East Bardera Mothers and Children's Hospital was initially envisioned as a maternity hospital but the need of the community for broad medical services facility was an immediate need which needed an urgent solution. Currently, all women and mothers can get medical advice and relatively cheap medications. The UNICEF has afforded EBMCH some supplements for expecting women and new mothers. Nurses make scheduled visits to homes of new mothers where they dispense basic medical services including free supplements for the mothers as well for the new babies.

Since there is no functioning ministry of health, the hospital staff does whatever it can to help improve the health of the community, particularly, the health of women and children. Prevention of problems is the goal of the staff at East Bardera Mothers and Children's Hospital.

East Bardera Hospital services and facilities

Patients who receive medical services include children as well as adults. The hospital mostly focuses on women's and children's health services. Nurses and midwives go out into the community where they give medical advice and services to women in their homes. During 2007, over 1400 women received prenatal and maternity help in their own homes or at EBMCH facilities.

Maternity Services Rendered 2007 & First Quarter of 2008

*2008 first quarter figures. The previous year shows almost equal number of women being helped at their homes compared to those at EBMCH maternity ward.

Soure: Fardowsa Abdinur Hashi and Yahya Farah, April 2008 EBMCH Report

Facilities at East Bardera Mothers and Children's Hospital contain five rooms, with three rooms having patient beds including a delivery bed. As of the end of 2007, no other MCH in Bardera offered full maternity services and this has overwhelmed the staff at East Bardera Mothers and Children's Hospital in their quest to provide maternity services to women across the city. Data compiled by the staff shows close to 3000 women being helped either at the EBMCH facility or in their own homes. Lack of emergency response vehicles made half of those women who were given maternity services to give birth at home.

taff at EBMCH

The medical team at East Bardera Mothers and Children's Hospital numbers six in total. There is the head nurse who is also the Director of East Bardera Mothers and Children's Hospital. [http://www.somalisupportsecretariat.info/events/stories/seho.htm] Other staff includes an additional nurse, a midwife, an assistant midwife, a junior pharmacist, and an assistant pharmacist.

Nurse Fardowsa serves as the Assistant Head Nurse at East Bardera Mothers and Children's Hospital. She has held this position since October 2007.

Markabo Bilal Kulow Markabo has served the Bardera community for over 10 years as a midwife.

The staff at EBMCH is hard at work in finding solutions to one deadly occurrence in Somalia during each dry season: the deadly watery diarrhea or Acute Watery Diarrhea (AWD). Communities across Somalia suffer from this annual occurrence. The East Bardera Hospital is planning to establish a permanent treatment center for this disease and other communicable diseases such as Tuberculosis and HIV AIDS.

The hospital currently gets many of its medical supplies from the United States and Canada; the majority of medications at larger Somali markets such as Mogadishu and Kismayo are often unreliable and sometimes dangerous for consumption.

Community Education Against FGM And Other Health Information Sessions

Staff at East Bardera Hospital have initially taken up the task of going to Bardera city neighborhoods where they give basic health education in which the community will benefit in the long term. One issue which devastated many women and young girls was the Female Genital Mutilation (FGM). It is the practise where girls at young age are subjected to removing and re-stiching of genital parts. This practise causes major damage to the health of the women. Since the last twenty five years or so, there has been slow but growing attention being given to this subject. Educated women are aware of the health problems faced by women who have gone throught this terrible procedure and they choose not to take their daugthers to these mutilating practioners. Some of the problems resuling from FGM include birthing problems, unusual infections, and numerous other complications. Nurses at EBMCH regularly hold sessions dealing with FGM at all community outings. Neighborhood Level community health information sessisons include:

#The need for every woman to take care of her health by visiting clinics often and ask about specific treamtments
#Getting supplements and proper nutrition during and after pregnacy
#Taking part in women oriented organizations' meetings

Nurses at East Bardera tell women: Healthy women raise healthy children. This statement often results other women and men supporting female family members where they are afforded financial and other forms of help such as family members accepting medical advice given to mothers and young women when they bring such information home.

Community participation in strengthening EBMCH

The staff at EBMCH encourages visitors from North America and Europe to bring well-preserved over-the-counter medicines and donate them to the EBMCH's Pharmacy Department. They have requested medications that have a long shelf-life because non-air-conditioned room temperatures are too high for many medicines.

References

* [http://www.somalisupportsecretariat.info/events/stories/seho.htm UN Somali Secreteriat: Profile of Nurse Lul Barre, Director, East Bardera Mothers and Children's Hospital]
* [http://www.fsausomali.org/uploads/Other/775.pdf FOA Nutrition Assessment In Bardera]


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Look at other dictionaries:

  • Bardera — Infobox Settlement official name = Bardera other name = native name = Baardheere nickname = settlement type = motto = imagesize = 300px image caption = Bardera: Looking Towards The Arc flag size = image seal size = image shield = shield size =… …   Wikipedia

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