For the children of Hargeisa

Hargeisa is the capital of Somaliland. Difficult territory, of great poverty, assaulted by the desertification of many neighbouring areas. Here, Specchio dei tempi built a children’s hospital in 2012. Fifty beds, over fifty employees. Here every day dozens of children are treated, the most serious hospitalized. Lives are saved every day. Here Specchio dei tempi has also developed and launched a three-year programme to support the new Department of Neonatology, which enjoys the contribution of the presence and teaching of neonatologists and nurses from Turin.

The Hargeisa hospital, which has treated over 55,000 children since the beginning of the activity, is headed by Dr. Piero Abbruzzese, former head of cardiac surgery at the Regina Margherita hospital in Turin. Our foundation covered over 80% of the building’s construction and management costs for the first three years. In 2016, as foreseen by the memorandum signed with the Somaliland government even before construction began, the hospital was transferred to the Ministry of Health of that country.

Since 2018, the conditions for an important return of our foundation have been recreated in this area which is one of the poorest and most difficult in Africa. Hence the commitment in the Neonatology department, where an average of 5 newborns are hospitalized every day, of which at least 2 are premature babies of low weight. With the help of a neonatologist and two Italian neonatal nurses, we taught local health professionals and achieved significant results in hospital survival. The shortcomings of Hargeisa, in fact, are mainly in the training of medical and paramedical staff, as well as in equipment. The result of this situation is dozens of children lost every year. Deaths that are avoidable. Lives we want to save.