"A PHILANTHROPIST and former foreign minister of Somaliland had lunch in Henley as part of a friendship arrangement." Henleystander
- Dr Edna Adan Ismail, a British-trained nurse and midwife who founded a
hospital in the republic’s capital Hargeisa, was greeted at Leander
Club by members of the Henley Borama Friendship Association. She
was in Britain to collect an honorary doctorate from London South Bank
University and was accompanied by Rhoda Ibrahim, the director of the
Somali Advice and Forum of Information. Dr Ismail spoke
about the hospital, which opened as a maternity unit in 2000 with only
26 trainee midwives but now delivers thousands of infants every year.
It
is also a university teaching hospital with 1,500 students, of whom
almost three-quarters are female, learning a range of subjects including
medical science, midwifery, dentistry and nutrition.
Dr
Ismail hopes to open a teacher training school and is currently seeking
candidates who can lecture in teaching skills in English.
She
has known the association’s president Brig Malcolm Page for many years
as she provides care for veterans of the Somaliland Scouts, the army
unit in which he served. It was this connection which prompted him to
launch the association in 1983.
Brig Page regularly donates old-fashioned nurses’ watches to the hospital and these are given as prizes to the best performers.
Dr
Ismail, 81, said: “It’s a pleasure to see a good friend of many, many
years who has been a great supporter of the hospital and of Somaliland
both before independence and since.
“His donations of
watches are a strong emotional link to my own training in Britain and is
a wonderful way to recognize nurses’ efforts. The friendship between
Henley and Borama is long-standing and important so I am also pleased to
be back in the town for the first time in several years. We cherish the
connection and wish to sustain it as long as we can.”
Brig
Page said: “I’m delighted and so proud that she has come to see me
while staying in England. I don’t like to consider her an ‘old’ friend
but certainly a well-established one!”
Somaliland is an
autonomous region and self-declared state in Somalia which was formed
in 1960 after it ceased to be a British protectorate.
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