COVID Pandemic Exposes Somalia's Weak Health Care System 

NAIROBI - Rights group Amnesty International says Somalia’s struggling health care system has been crippled by the coronavirus pandemic.  The group released a report Wednesday titled ‘We Just Watched COVID-19 Patients Die.’  It calls for urgent investment in Somalia's healthcare sector after years of neglect.   Amnesty International’s 27-page report on Somalia’s health care says the global pandemic has hit the struggling sector hard.    The Amnesty report quoted a senior Somali doctor saying in one ward on the same day four elderly men died within ten minutes because of lack of oxygen.    The rights group’s Somali researcher Abdullahi Hassan says health resources are so poor that medical workers too often could only stand by and watch their patients die.    “When COVID-19 pandemic came it laid bare how bad the situation was in Somalia.  For example, the response by the government was wholly inadequate.  There was only one hospital in Mogadishu that managed COVID-related cases and that one hospital lacked essential equipment.  Health workers who worked in that hospital... they really struggled with patients.  They did not have enough equipment; they did not have oxygen supply,” said Hassan. 

Amnesty says the Somali government allocates only 2% of its budget to healthcare while security services got the largest share, with 31%. Officially, Somalia has had more than 16,000 infections and almost 900 deaths from COVID.   But, the country’s chief medical officer, Dr. Mohamed Mohamud Ali, told Amnesty the death toll was certainly far higher.