Somalia – SOS Medical and Social Centres

In Somalia there is currently one Medical Centre for children and the local community, in Mogadishu.  Medical Centres provide treatments and services to the local community.  Below is some information about the Medical Centre that SOS Children runs in Somalia.  There is also information about our centres in Somaliland, which is an autonomous region of Somalia:

SOS Medical Centre in Somalia: In-Depth

Mogadishu

Description of SOS Medical Centre:

The SOS Medical Centre (Mother & Child Clinic) consists of 26 sick beds, 19 treatment rooms, a maternity room, operating theatre, a pharmacy, a laboratory and a blood bank. There three gynaecologists, 18 midwifes and several nurses provide 100 patients with medical treatment each day. An average of 14 babies is born at the clinic each day. The operating theatre is mainly used for caesarean operations but also for other operations. In order to ameliorate the pre-natal car of mothers women who are expecting a baby a specific programme was started and which is called "mother child health programme". This programme involves a regular and structured survey of preventive medical checkups, health and nutritional counselling and vaccinations. The SOS Medical Centre has a capacity of 30,000 persons per year.

Work and Achievements:

In Somalia, the health system, like other social services, disintegrated after the war. Premises were looted or destroyed, hospital management structures and supply systems were rendered non-functional and all training ceased. Health services have since, been provided with support from international organizations and the Somalia private sector.

To address this health crisis, SOS Somalia with its international health partners continued to provide comprehensive medical services to the needy population through its Mother and Child Clinic, Emergency Paediatric Unit and Baidoa OPD/MCH Clinic. SOS remains cognizant of the critical role that the hospital plays in accessing the most vulnerable communities to health care owing to the insecure conditions that have left the country with limited facilities providing health care.

In 2009, over 45,000 women were offered medical services at the clinic. These services include outpatient services, inpatients services, ante-natal care, clean and safe delivery and specialised health care such as emergency obstetric interventions. In addition, 116,993 children were treated by providing different essential health services.

The hospital also played a more proactive role aimed at curtailing child and maternal mortality and morbidity. Prevention of child mortality was undertaken through the enhanced program for immunization (EPI). Vaccines continue to be administered in the hospitals.

Somaliland

In Somaliland there is currently one Social Centre and two Medical Centres for children and the local community, in Hargeisa and Berbera.  Below is some information about some of the Centres that SOS Children runs in Somaliland:

SOS Social Centres around Somaliland: In-Depth

Hargeisa

Description of SOS Social Centre/FSP:

The SOS Social Centre (Family Strengthening Programme) provides help to a total of 800 children per year. The SOS Social Centre focuses on the formation of community support groups, whose members exchange information and experiences, support each other emotionally, create awareness on the prevention of HIV/Aids in the community and lobby for protection of orphaned and vulnerable children (OVC). It also helps regarding provision of books, school uniforms and school material to pupils and to lobby the government to provide bursaries. At the same time, it assists in getting loans, skills training, equipment based on individual family needs for income generating activities to ensure a stable, reliable source of income. In addition, the community resource and information centre provides access to information on women’s health issues and HIV/AIDS whilst the meeting space will be available for forums of support groups, open meetings and skills training for income generating activities (tailoring, tapestry etc.).

Work and Achievements:

The FSP programme in Hargeisa started smoothly within the year 2009. The program continues to support 396 (male 207 and female 189) children. This shows that the full capacity of the program has been achieved at 99%. In order to ensure the access to quality education for the children under the FSP, 165 children (42%) were helped to attend schools in the town. In a small ceremony held at SOS Compound, the National Director distributed educational materials to these beneficiaries.

In an effort to realize self reliance by the beneficiaries, 87 caregivers were given Income Generating fund. Before the funds were given to these beneficiaries, training on financial management and book keeping were offered. In addition, continuous monitoring on the beneficiaries business was conducted throughout the year. Advice and counselling aimed at helping them to reap maximum profit of their business were also offered. So far 99% of these beneficiaries are doing well in their business.

In June, an organizational capacity assessment workshop was organized at the social centre. The workshop which was facilitated by the National Project Coordinator FSP, brought together participants from SOS FSP, Action Aid and Progressio. The aim of the workshop was to assess the capacity of Talowadaag, a partner CBO, to determine their strengths and weaknesses as well as to enable the three organizations to focus on areas in which they can provide support to the CBO without duplication. Two VCT counsellors were trained in Nairobi, Kenya.

SOS Medical Centres around Somaliland: In-Depth

Hargeisa

Description of SOS Medical Centre:

SOS Medical Centre (mother and child) went into operation in April 2008. Its services benefit approximately 10,500 children und mothers per year. It comprises several examination and treatment rooms, voluntary counselling and testing centre (HIV/Aids and other diseases), one laboratory, one pharma-ceutical store. It provides diagnostic and basic curative services for common ailments in the area (respiratory tract infections, malaria, tuberculosis, HIV/Aids etc.), immunization, pre-natal and ante natal care and raises the awareness of families on primary health care and health promoting behaviour change and helps to build the capacities of the community to provide basic health care through training.

Work and Achievements:

The Medical centre in Hargeisa continued to offer medical services to the needy population in the project area. A total of 12, 578 patients were served in the different departments of the clinic. Out of this total 3,544 were children under the age of five. In addition, health and nutrition education sessions have been conducted in the MCH centre where the target group were among the expectant mothers as well as breastfeeding mothers.

Berbera

Work and Achievements:

In Berbera medical centre, a total of 3,603 patients were treated out of which 2,058 were children. Immunisation and growth monitoring for under five children have been regularly performed in the centre throughout the year.