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Strategies for post-conflict development of the Health Systems in Somalia: lessons from selected countries
Get PDFUntil the beginning of 1991, Somalia had a reasonable health care system with a good number of tertiary hospitals in Mogadishu and Hargeisa, some regional hospitals, district hospitals, clinics, child and mother health centres (CMH) and out-patient dispensaries. However, the conflict resulting from the civil war has destroyed the public health care system which existed in the country.
Somalia was not alone in having conflicts. The total number of conflicts in the world in 2017 was 49, many of them have now entered post-conflict phases, where open warfare has come to an end. There is growing evidence that conflict has a devastating impact on health systems and the health status of the population.
In Somalia, the post-conflict phase provides a unique window of opportunity for health sector development and reform. At this juncture, health systems in Somalia face the double burden of a flawed pre-conflict health system, characterised by deficiencies and inequities, and the long-term impact of conflict on the health status of the population and its resultant strain on the health system.
This review article analyses the framework for the rehabilitation of health systems in post-conflict countries. Such knowledge can be applied in the rehabilitation and development of health systems in Somalia along the lines of the World Health Organization’s health system building blocks.
The impact of conflict on the health status of the population as well as the health system can be catastrophic and be felt for years after the State has entered the post-conflict phase, but also provides an opportunity for reforms of the affected State’s health sector
Midwives’ and mothers’ perspectives on skin-to-skin care of premature and low-birthweight infants in Puntland, Somalia
Get PDFBackground: More than 2.5 million children die yearly due to prematurity and low birthweight. Skin-to-skin care provides a thermal-control environment that offers protection from infection and eases breast milk feeding to the advantage of the new-born.
Aim: This study aimed to explore barriers and facilitating factors for introducing skin-to-skin care of premature and low-birthweight infants based on input from mothers and midwives in Puntland, Somalia.
Methods: Qualitative semi-structured interviews with four mothers and four midwives were analysed using qualitative content analysis.
Results: The findings are presented in four categories: enabled by support and hands-on information to the mother and her family; aided by collaboration with the mother’s family to overcome the mother’s resistance; impeded by limited time, lack of resources and unavailable guidelines; and hindered by traditional and social beliefs. Both mothers and midwives emphasised the importance of information and education concerning skin-to-skin care of premature and low-birthweight infants. Family members and midwives facilitated skin-to-skin contact as the care model. The degree to which the midwives provided information to the mothers and their family members depended on how the two latter groups received and acted on such information and education. Lack of motivation by mothers, their families or midwives were barriers to skin-to-skin contact as a care model.
Conclusion: Standardised guidelines, preferably culturally tailored for low socioeconomic groups, for midwives’ use when informing mothers and families on skin-to-skin contact as a care model for premature and low-birthweight infants would empower women, families and midwives to facilitate the practice in Puntland, Somalia
Anna Lena Deeg, Die Insel in der nordgermanischen Mythologie, München: Herbert Utz Verlag 2016 (Münchner Nordistische Studien 23), ISBN 9783831645077, 256 pp.
No full textNorsk språkhistorie. Editors-in-chief: Helge Sandøy & Agnete Nesse. Vol. 4: Tidslinjer. Editor: Agnete Nesse; Assistant editor-in-chief: Stig Rognes, Oslo: Novus Forlag 2018, ISBN 9788270998500, 798 pp.
No full textDolly Jørgensen & Virginia Langum (eds.), Visions of the North in Premodern Europe, Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols Publishers 2018, ISBN: 9782503574752, 370 pp.
No full textLiving (with) Ice: Geo-sociality in the High Arctic
Get PDFThe main tenet of this article is to show how the ice, so visually dominant in the High Arctic, is also a prominent life force. The ice is never still and as it moves, melts or freeze, it deeply affects human and animal life in the region; conversely the diverse life-forms affect the icy environment in their own way and tempo. This interplay exposes the geo-social relations at the centre of this article, taking off from the gradual retraction of the ice after the last Ice Age, opening up for human movement and settlement in High Arctic America and eventually in Thule (Avanersuaq), in Northwest Greenland. Today some 750 people live there as hunters in the unsurpassable old hunting style, yet also as modern as anybody when it comes to outlook. Through brief discussions of particular periods, from the “discovery” of the Inughuit in 1819 and until the present, it is shown how deeply their life is implicated in the living ice, for better and for worse. The ice emerges as a refrain that holds the landscape together. The argument is based both in historical research and in regular anthropological fieldwork in the region over ten years 2007–2017
Dansk sproghistorie Vol. 3. Bøjning og bygning. Editor-in-chief: Ebba Hjorth; Editors: Henrik Galberg Jacobsen, Bent Jørgensen, Birgitte Jacobsen, Merete Korvenius Jørgensen & Laurids Kristian Fahl, Aarhus: Aarhus Universitetsforlag 2019, ISBN 97887718416
No full textNorsk språkhistorie. Editor-in-chief: Helge Sandøy & Agnete Nesse. Vol. 3: Ideologi. Editor: Tove Bull; Assistant editor-in-chief: Stig Rognes, Oslo: Novus Forlag 2018, ISBN 9788270998494, 548 pp.
No full textAnders Persson, Den levande närvaron av Ordet. Åtta essäer om bilden av den rosenianska och den laestadianska väckelsen i norrländsk skönlitteratur
No full textReview of: Anders Persson, Den levande närvaron av Ordet. Åtta essäer om bilden av den rosenianska och den laestadianska väckelseni norrländsk skönlitteratur [‘The living presence of the Word. Eight essays on the image of the Rosenian and Laestadian revival movement in northern Swedish fiction’], Skellefteå: Norma 2018, ISBN 9789172171138, 175 pp
Mental health care delivery in poor settings through trained female community health workers: A five-year intervention program in Somaliland
No full textBackground: The situation of mental health globally is alarming particularly in developing countries. In Somaliland/Somalia, every third person may be suffering from some sort of mental illness according to the World Health Organization. Major barriers to improve mental health include stigma and lack of skilled human resources.
Objectives: The aim was to explore the feasibility of organizing integrated community-based mental, epilepsy and mother and child health services delivered by trained female community health workers (FCHWs) in three urban sites (Borama, Baki and Dila) in the Awdal Region, Somaliland.
Methods: After selection of the 3 project sites and recruitment and training of project staff, a baseline survey was carried out. First, the sites were properly mapped based on existing geographical administrative sectors and sub-sectors of the sites. Then a representative sample of 2,722 households was randomly selected from all the 3 sites. The female head of each of those households were then interviewed using a questionnaire containing 22 questions on the target groups. The questionnaire responses were coded, and data analysed using Statistical software program, SPSS. After the baseline survey, the FCHWs were deployed in the sites assigning a specified area to each female worker. The FCHWs worked 6 hours per day 6 days per week and were required to visit 6 families each day including follow-ups. Their activities included identification of patients with severe mental illness (SMI) or with epilepsy, counselling, distribution of medications, follow-up of patients already on medication, referral, stigma reduction and documentation of their daily activities in logbooks.
Results: The baseline study showed that 12% of the households were taking care of at least one person with SMI each, while 7% had one person with epilepsy each. Of the patients with SMI, 18% were on chains. During the project period (2015-2019), the number of people with SMI or with epilepsy who benefited from the project was 2.225 and 738 respectively and their families empowered through increased mental health awareness. Among the patients with SMI, 237 were on chains before intervention and 85% of them were successfully released from their shackles.
Conclusions: This project has shown that deployment of trained and supported FCHWs can be used to reduce the mental health care gap in Somaliland. It is suggested as a model project which could, hopefully, be replicated and tested in other similar settings