Somali health ministry to scale up skills of health workers across the nation

Somali ministry health has said it is carrying out initiatives to scale up skills of Public health officials and practitioners across the nation.

Ravaged by civil war for nearly two decades, it is unsurprising that Somalia has one of the worst health-worker shortages in Africa.

Somali Ministry of Health is trying to put in place a plan to advance the reconstruction and restructuring of existing referral, regional, district and community clinics which were devastated by the civil war and build new regional and district hospitals and community clinics.

The director of treatment department of the ministry, Abdirisack Yusuf Hassan said the ministry  has decided to train health care providers across the nation and acknowledge them as Health Workers.

“The ministry will train all health workers and  maintain a standard operating procedure (SOP) for these Health Workers to be prepared,” said Hassan.

He added “Given the shortage and inadequate distribution of healthcare workers in Somalia, training more physicians, nurses, social workers, and other health care providers (e.g. physician assistants and nurse practitioners, etc.) should a priority policy issue in national healthcare.”

Most troubling, Somali healthcare underperforms relative to other countries. Somali infant and child mortality rates are among the highest in the world even among the post conflict African countries.

There are many causes: lack of adequate immunization, poor sanitation, malnutrition, diarrhea, acute respiratory diseases, malaria, etc.

A poor road network and limited number of health facilities compounds the lack of access to healthcare