Edna Adan Hospital to train 50 Post-Basic Midwives in Somaliland

WASHINGTON - Sept. 22, 2014 - PRLog -- The Edna Adan Hospital Foundation (“EAHF”) awarded a grant to train 50 Somaliland women to serve as post-basic midwives at the Edna Adan University Hospital in Hargesia, Somaliland which is located in Northeast Africa, bordered by Ethiopia in the South and West and Djibouti in the Northwest.

It has an estimated population of 3.5 million and an approximate GDP per capita estimated at $347.  This would be the fourth lowest in the world, ahead of Malawi, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Burundi.

The grant will be used to fund examinations, clinical training, supplies,and transportation for 50 post-basic midwives.

Among the goals of the Edna Adan University Hospital is to train 1,000 young midwives and then to return them to their communities where they will be able to save the lives of mothers and infants far into the future.

The health of the people of Somaliland is among the worst in Africa. Somaliland has one of the highest maternal and child mortality rates in the world and the most consistent source of quality medical care in the country is provided by Edna Adan University Hospital.

Edna Adan was featured in the PBS documentary “Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Oppportunity for Women Worldwide,” based on the book by the same name by journalists Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn.  She is the former Foreign Minister and First Lady of Somaliland and is an activist and pioneer in the fight to end female genital mutilation.  She received an honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from the University of Pennsylvania and was the first recipient of the Reinfield Foundation Award for Global Women’s Health at UPenn’s Nursing School.

She founded the Edna Adan University Hospital in 2002 and has trained 400 midwives to date.