HARGEISA, 30 June 2010 – Edna Adan Ismail became interested in health in the 1950s, seeing her doctor father struggle to treat the sick in the then British protectorate of Somaliland. She later became the first Somali woman to be appointed to an international civil service position in 1965 when she joined the UN World Health Organization (WHO) as a nurse-educator based in Libya.
Her life-long passion for medicine culminated in the Edna Adan Hospital, the only teaching and referral hospital in Hargeisa, capital of the self-declared republic of Somaliland.
“I built this hospital because I have wanted to build a hospital since I was 11 years old; this has been a life-long madness,” Ismail told IRIN in Hargeisa.
“I wanted to build a hospital because my father, Adan Ismail, better known as Adan Dhakhtar [Adan the doctor] was known as the father of healthcare and was the most senior Somali health professional in his time, and as a young girl I always heard my father wishing for a good health facility,” she said.
In 1986, Ismail started building a hospital in Mogadishu, capital of Somalia, but war broke out before its completion and the structure was later destroyed.
She worked with WHO for 32 years and upon retirement, she went home to Somaliland in 1997 and in 1998 laid the foundation stone for Edna Adan Hospital. It officially opened on 9 March 2002.
Intended as a maternity hospital, other patients “who were not women and not pregnant” but needed medical attention arrived at its doors within hours of opening, persuading Ismail to make it a general health facility.
In May 2010 alone, the hospital treated 34 fistula patients from across the Horn of Africa.
“I am grateful as a woman and human being to be able to help women like them; people think I have given something but they don’t know how much I am getting,” Ismail said. “There is no bank in the world big enough to hold what I get from the satisfaction of seeing a woman who was leaking urine for 30 years leave the hospital and go home dry.”
Funding problems
However, Ismail has to deal with the challenges of running a hospital on a shoestring. “Only last month [May], we were US$11,000 in the red,” she said.
Even though the hospital charges nominal fees that are lower than other hospitals, Ismail has to raise funds to keep it going. She has built shops and a conference facility to generate income for the hospital.
She said many business people in Hargeisa and foreign charities have been helping to keep the hospital going. She also raises funds in the diaspora, mainly in the west, and there are in-kind contributions too. “Some universities donate books,” she said.
International accolades
Ismail’s work has won her numerous awards, but she is still looking to do more for her community.
In February, French President Nicolas Sarkozy awarded Ismail the Legion of Honour, the highest France can bestow, and normally presented only to French nationals. She received the award in Hargeisa on 17 April 2010.
South Africa’s Pretoria University has also given Ismail its Human Rights award.
“I am grateful that I have earned honour instead of disgrace but I receive these honours with a lot of humility, because there are many people around the world doing many wonderful things,” she said.
Job satisfaction
Ismail hopes that the awards and honours she has received will encourage future generations and give them the confidence that they too can make a difference.
Mohamed Osman, deputy director of the hospital, said: “She [Ismail] gets immense satisfaction from the work she does and will continue to do, particularly for those who cannot afford healthcare and come here. She is not easily discouraged and is a very determined woman.”
Osman said if Ismail had not built the hospital, “Hargeisa would not be what it is today. Many of those we care for would have had nowhere to go.”
The hospital is also training the next generation of medics including nurses, midwives, laboratory technicians and pharmacists.
Hargeisa residents say Ismail is a great resource and an example of what people can do for their community “if they put their minds to it”.
ah-js/mw
[This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations]