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Somalia has one of the weakest health systems in the world. Every eighth child dies before its fifth birthday, hardly anywhere else is maternal mortality so high. The gynecologist Deqo Mohamed shows what it means to work under such circumstances.
Deqo Mohamed works in a healthcare system that doesn’t deserve the name. The Somali government spends just 1.3 percent of the already measly state budget on health. Seriously ill people cannot be treated in Somalia, says the gynecologist: “Whoever has the money leaves the country immediately if they are seriously ill.” There are far too few well-trained health workers in Somalia, but there is also a lack of infrastructure: clinics, medicines.
Deqo Mohamed explains that this leads Somali women to seek help from traditional healers: “Around a quarter of my patients have burns. You go to the country with inflammation in the genital area and receive treatment there. Some woman there who supposedly offers help takes a piece of hot iron and burns the entire vagina. ” Plastic surgery is a big part of her job. And all because some crazy grandmother thinks that she treats the patient with a hot iron.
Legend:
Deqo Mohamed works one day a week in her sister’s clinic in Mogadishu.
SRF / Anna Lemmenmeier
The doctor shakes her head. In addition: Almost all women in Somalia are circumcised. Deqo Mohamed explains in her consulting room that this also has an impact on the high maternal mortality rate. Sometimes women come to her because of severe pain after giving birth to ten children. «It is clear that you are in pain, your body is mutilated. That’s the only thing I can say to these women ». Because of the way the women were circumcised and sewn back together, there was little she could do for the patients.
No health care at all in the country
Deqo Mohamed works one day a week in her sister’s clinic in the capital. The Somali woman uses this income to finance her work in the countryside. Because even if the health care in Mogadishu is bad, nothing is available in the country. Because in large parts of Somalia there is no state and therefore no services.
Legend:
There are clinics in the capital, Mogadishu. In the countryside, on the other hand, health care is non-existent.
SRF / Anna Lemmenmeier
The country has never had a functioning government since the outbreak of civil war 30 years ago. Large parts of the country are under the control of the jihadist Al-Shabaab militia and are therefore inaccessible to the government. Because the government does not have access to large parts of the country, there is not even statistical data. About the extent and the reasons for the high child and maternal mortality. “I’ve met women who have never been to the doctor. They tell me: I gave birth to 20 children and ten died. ” That is why the doctor believes that child mortality is probably even higher than previously assumed. In order to finally have health data from Somalia, the energetic gynecologist has now set up a research institute this year. Even after so many years in the service of health under difficult conditions – Deqo Mohamed does not give up.