January 13, 2011
Direct Relief, together with The Fistula Foundation, provided support for the construction and equipping of a new operating theater at Edna Adan University Hospital in Somaliland to enable greater access to surgery for obstetric fistula patients, and emergency obstetrics (cesarean section) to prevent fistula and other serious complications of childbirth. The new theaters have also improved the surgical capacity of the hospital overall, and are facilitating operations which were never possible before, as Edna reports in an excerpt from her letter to us, below.
Dear Direct Relief,
The past few days have been some of the busiest and also happiest days of my life: We opened the theatres and started operations!
The Opening Ceremony was attended by the First Lady of Somaliland, the Minister of Health, the Minister of Religious Affairs, members of the Board of Trustees of the Hospital, national and international partners, Universities of Hargeisa and Borama, staff, students, friends and other dignitaries as well as the media.
After the opening ceremony, we cleaned and re-sterilized the theaters, getting ourselves and premises ready for operations.
We then had the visit of the American Medical Team from the Kijabe Mission Hospital in Kenya. They are a team of doctors, mainly surgeons, who came to us in 2007 to offer help with the operations on children with hydrocephalus (enlarged head with spinal fluid). Since we only had one theatre at that time, and since that one theatre was used for everything, the risk would have been too great for these kids who easily die of post-operative infections. When theatres were being built, we informed them and they came to see the premises and agreed to start the operations this January.
You may wish to know that all the cost of these operations (dressings, instruments, food for children and mother, clothing, medication, etc. is totally free of charge and I am covering it personally. This also includes the food and accommodation of the two surgeons and one anesthetist living at our hospital for the week they are here.
We have already done the first four children who are doing well and possibly one or two more tomorrow. This is the first time that this is being done in Somaliland, and if all goes well, we will be doing camps for these children each time that we can get the surgeons. In the past, this surgery was available only to those who could be flown abroad, who had a visa, and whose families had the money to pay for it.
The surgeons are also doing orthopedic surgery and plastic surgery on persons who had burns and who have developed contractures of hands, fingers, arms, and neck. They have done ten so far and more tomorrow. On the 30th of this month, after the current patients have hopefully gone home, we will be doing two days of cleft lip repair. We will do as many as we can in two days for those who show up.
Starting on the 6th of February, we have sent out the announcements for the first Fistula Camp this year with support from the WAHA [Women and Health Alliance International] team who operated on the 34 women last year. These will be covered by the funds already received through the Fistula Foundation. In March, we are preparing for another Fistula Camp. [link: http://waha-international.org/]
Each day, we have all been in the theater from 7 in the morning until after 10 at night. I am so proud of our staff and so happy that we could do this for our people.
Love and blessings,
Edna