PETERBOROUGH, NEW HAMPSHIRE (USA) – On Dr. Fletcher R. Wilson’s first trip to Ethiopia, he decided he wouldn’t let it be his last.
Wilson, an obstetrician and gynecologist at Monadnock OB GYN Associates in Peterborough who lives in Hancock, traveled to Ethiopia the first time more than a year ago to adopt his now-3-year-old daughter.
During the trip, he was shocked to see the condition of medical care available in the country and contacted Wide Horizons For Children, the Massachusetts-based nonprofit organization through which he was adopting that has also built schools and clinics in the country.
By April, Wilson and another local doctor, Dr. Steven W. Coffman, a surgeon at Monadnock Surgical Associates in Peterborough, were headed to Ethiopia on a fact-finding mission to assess medical needs in the East African nation of 82.5 million people.
“They (Wide Horizons) had money and wanted to build hospitals and health clinics, because they have a humanitarian aid arm,” Wilson said. “But they didn’t have medically trained people to guide them. So that’s where we fit in.”
The country lies in a region of the African continent that is a hotbed of instability — bordered by Kenya, Somalia, Djibouti, Sudan and Eritrea, which it was embroiled in a border war with until signing a peace treaty in 2000 — but is relatively peaceful.
It remains, however, an impoverished agricultural nation that suffers from frequent droughts, with more than 1.5 million people infected with AIDS or HIV. The average life-expectancy is 55 years old, according to the Central Intelligence Agency’s World Factbook Web site.
Wilson, who said he’s been interested in practicing medicine in developing countries for years, enlisted Coffman’s help because the surgeon had extensive experience on international medical trips, having been to Haiti, the Philippines, Cambodia, Laos, Brazil and Peru.
The doctors are planning to start a project in Ethiopia that will focus primarily on promoting women’ and children’s health in Ethiopia, especially expectant mothers and infants, although Wilson said an influx of medical care and improved facilities will benefit the general population.
The ultimate goal is to decrease the need for adoptions by making child-birth less risky in a country where two-thirds of mothers die in labor, Fletcher said.
Because of the malnutrition that plagues the country, many women’s bodies are not fully developed when they become pregnant, and often they are too small for a baby to pass through the birth canal.
“It was just staggering to see,” Wilson said. “Only about five percent of births take place in a hospital with trained professionals.”
In one region of the country, women who need Cesarean sections, or surgery to remove the baby, are sent to walk 27 kilometers, roughly the distance from Keene to Jaffrey, to the nearest hospital for treatment.
If they are too weak to finish the trip, they will return home and die after days of unsuccessful labor, Wilson said
Fletcher’s own daughter was orphaned this way. As the youngest of nine children, when her mother died in child birth the family gave her up for adoption because they could not support her, he said.
When Wilson and his wife, Holly, adopted her, their daughter was more than 2 years old and weighed only 17 pounds.
In a report detailing their findings about the country’s medical care that they submitted to Wide Horizons after their visit in April, Wilson and Coffman say they hope to bring at least two ambulances into the country to relieve the necessity of walking to medical care.
Not surprisingly, Wilson said, what they found during their April trip, and a second visit earlier this month, was a lack of available medical care in rural parts of the country. But the reality of the situation was much more sobering than the doctors had expected.
In the southern part of the country Wilson and Coffman visited two hospitals and a clinic recently built by Wide Horizons. In a the southern-most hospital, which serves about 2 million people, there were two surgeons, two obstetrician and gynecologists, an eye doctor, a nurse anesthetist and 10 general doctors.
But conditions in the north, a rugged, mountainous area were more desperate, Wilson said. At one of the region’s two hospitals, one doctor serves about 1.5 million patients.
Seeing how much need there was in the country encouraged Wilson and Coffman to continue their work there.
“This was one of the most rewarding trips I’ve been on because of the need,” Coffman said. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”
When they returned this month, along with Dr. Joseph V. Lupo Jr., an anesthesiologist at Monadnock Community Hospital, and his wife Mary Jo Lupo, a post-surgical nurse, the doctors performed several surgeries with their Ethiopian counterparts and taught them some new procedures.
Wilson and Coffman say that type of training will be a major piece of their project.
They plan to focus on teaching lower-level medical professionals to do basic procedures such as sewing vaginal tears, which are common in natural childbirth.
Part of the problem they face is that it is hard to retain doctors at hospitals, since they can find better paying jobs with international nonprofit agencies, Wilson said.
Doctors in Ethiopia make a salary of about $200 a month, or about $2,400 per year, but they can make close to $10,000 working for a nonprofit agency in the country, according to Wilson.
“It’s understandably a draw in a country where people are so poor in general,” Wilson said.
Hospitals and clinics are also staffed with mid-level health care providers who do daily inpatient care, similar to the work of a nurse practitioner in the U.S, and “field surgeons,” who receive only three to nine months of training and learn how to do basic surgeries, such as appendectomies and Cesarean sections.
Most women deliver babies at home with the help of traditional birthing aides, who, unlike mid-wives in the U.S., don’t have standard training and are not regulated by the government.
Wilson and Coffman hope to design a program in Ethiopia that can be managed by a local doctor or administrator. They plan to make four trips a year back to the country with other doctors to perform procedures and train local medical professionals.
“I think that by teaching the doctors and professionals there we can begin to see things turn around,” Wilson said.
Casey Farrar can be reached at 352-1234, extension 1435, or [email protected].
KHARTOUM (Reuters) – Sudanese politicians claimed Barack Obama as one of their own on Saturday as they belatedly celebrated his election as U.S. president, hailing his family roots in their country.
Much has been made of Obama’s father’s origins in Kenya. But he acknowledged his distant Sudanese roots in his autobiography ‘Dreams From My Father’.
“His father came from the Luo (tribe), who are from the Nile. The Luo originally moved from Sudan to Kenya,” said Yasir Arman, a senior member of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement, former southern rebels who are now in a coalition government with the north.
Hundreds of SPLM supporters crammed into their headquarters for a belated party marking Obama’s victory.
Many held up banners marked ‘New Sudan Yes We Can’ – a message that merged an SPLM slogan with Obama’s rallying cry.
Arman said members were inspired by Obama’s election as the United States’ first black president.
“It is giving a message to our society that Sudan can do the same, that Sudan can recognize its own diversity,” he said.
“We hope he will be able to give more attention to all of Africa, not just Sudan.”
The United States has had a troubled relationship with Sudan’s Khartoum-based government. It has imposed trade sanctions on Khartoum, included it on its list of state sponsors of terrorism, and accused northern troops and militias of committing genocide in the Darfur conflict.
The south has been exempted from most of the sanctions.
The SPLM fought the north for more than 20 years in a conflict that pitted the Islamist Khartoum government against mainly Christian and animist rebels. The war ended with a 2005 peace agreement.
Pune, India (UNI) – Ethiopian runners, popular for their long distance running, will be taking part along with the top runners from Kenya and Tanzania in the 23rd edition of the Vodafone Pune international marathon, to be flagged off here on December 7.
The 28-member contingent, comprising 25 men, will run in the full marathon while the three women members will take part in the half-marathon.
The most impressive performers among the contingent are Derese Gashu Hilmneh and Wellay Amare, who have broken the 2:10:00 barrier.
Hilmneh has a time record of 2:09:52 in Frankfurt this year. Whereas Amare had finished the race with in 2:09:58 in the Amesterdam last year.
The three women runners of the squad– Wosen Bekele Desta, Firehiwop Tesfaye Gebereyesus and Birhan Aregawi Gebremichael, are expected to provide stiff challenge to their rivals from Kenya and Tanzania.
Teams from Doctors Without Borders (MSF) treated 164 refugees from Ethiopia and Somalia who arrived on a beach in southern Yemen on December 1, after they made a harrowing two-day journey in smuggler boats launched from northern Somalia.
At least 24 people did not survive the trip. Most of the bodies were collected from the beach yesterday, with several more discovered today, in Ahwar, Yemen.
A total of 195 refugees and migrants made the journey in two overcrowded boats that disembarked from the port city of Bossasso in the Puntland region of northern Somalia. People were forced overboard by the smugglers approximately 400 meters from the Yemeni shore. Some survivors were treated by MSF for knife wounds. The smugglers stabbed them when they refused to jump from the boat while still in deep water far from shore.
Sixty percent of the survivors of this latest journey came from Ethiopia, with the remainder from Somalia.
Boatloads of people routinely arrive on Yemen’s southern shores. The majority of the passengers are usually Somali people fleeing war and persecution at home. Some Ethiopians also report that they are fleeing persecution and violence in some areas of their country. Since the beginning of the year, 350 people have died attempting the journey; the figure is probably too low since some bodies are lost at sea and others a buried quickly and unannounced by local villagers.
A one-and-a-half year-old boy reached the shore with his twenty-year-old aunt. They had set off from Bossaso with the boy’s 24-year-old mother after journeying from the Oromo region of Ethiopia to northern Somalia in search of a better life in Yemen.
The boy’s aunt searched the beach in vain for her sister, who apparently did not survive after being forced from the boat. Seven hours later, Yemeni fisherman found the boy’s mother in the water, miraculously alive.
“The boat was very crowded,” said the boy’s mother. “We had no water or food. Only the smugglers did. If you move, they kick you. If someone dies on the boat, they throw them overboard. I witnessed someone being thrown into the sea.”
Twenty-four hours after her ordeal she was confused, exhausted, and could barely walk. “Yesterday I was in the sea,” she whispered. “I don’t know how I was saved. Only today can I talk. I don’t know where I am right now, but I would like to go to Yemen.”
Since the beginning of 2008, MSF teams in southern Yemen have treated over 8,000 people who have arrived by boat. Survivors are provided with immediate medical assistance on the beach and are given dry clothes, water, and nutrient-fortified foods. They are then transported to a United Nations reception center in the town of Ahwar, where MSF operates a medical clinic and provides counseling services. MSF began its project in southern Yemen in September 2007.
In June 2008, MSF released a report, titled “No Choice,” which documents the conditions of the perilous journey to Yemen and calls for increased assistance for the thousands of refugees, asylum seekers, and migrants fleeing their home countries.
ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia- The Ethiopian parliament has lifted the immunity from criminal prosecution of Shewaferahu Yitina, elected member of the Coalition for Unity and Democracy (CUD) after a request from Addis Ababa City Administration saying he is a suspect in two robbery cases.
The letter the city administration wrote to the parliament specified that Shewaferahu was also caught committing a third robbery and is already under investigation.
According to the constitution of the country, though parliament members have full immunity, this will be taken away if they are caught committing a criminal act.
However, the letter of the City Administration says police have not been able to question Shewaferahu for the other two robbery cases because of his privileged status as a parliamentarian.
“I have nothing to do with any of the cases the police is charging me with,” said Shewaferahu when asked to defend himself before his immunity is taken away.
“I have written a letter both to the parliament and to the minister’s office about my innocence, but no one came to talk to me. I am becoming a victim of injustice,” he added.
Shewaferahu also explained to parliament members that he was sick and was getting traditional treatment at the time police accused him of being involved in a robbery and that many people can testify to that.
He also revealed the nature of the interrogation the police had subjected him to; “What the police had been asking me about was why I joined the parliament,” he said.
After looking at the letter of request from the city administration, the legal and administration affairs standing committee in the parliament forwarded a recommendation to the parliament asking for the removal of Shewaferahu’s immunity.
“The standing committee isn’t giving a verdict that Shewaferahu is guilty and should be sentenced. We are saying he should be questioned by the police for the crimes he is suspected of,” said Asmelash, a member of the standing committee.
With a majority vote of 245 in favor, 73 opposing and 20 abstentions, the parliament accepted the recommendation of the standing committee to remove Shewaferahu’s immunity.
This is PART 7 of a seven-part in-depth look behind the scenes of the campaign, consisting of exclusive behind-the-scenes reporting from the McCain and Obama camps assembled by a special team of reporters who were granted year-long access on the condition that none of their findings appear until after Election Day.
The Final Days
Obama was leading in the polls, even in red states like Virginia. But McCain almost seemed to glory in being the underdog.
The Obama campaign ran the biggest, best-financed get-out-the-vote campaign in the history of American politics. It wanted to turn out minorities and the young, groups that traditionally stay away from the polls. For the cautious, self-consciously virtuous Obamaites, this worthy goal posed some special challenges.
The campaign wanted to reach out to young black men, but in a way that would not antagonize white voters. The rap artist Jay-Z offered to perform in concert for Obama in October, but the campaign was “nervous,” recalled Jim Messina, the campaign chief of staff. Black leaders from the community in Detroit and Miami pleaded with Obama headquarters, Messina recalled, saying, in effect, “You keep saying to us, ‘Go produce sporadic African-American young voters.’ Give us the tools. Jay-Z is a tool and you have to give him to us.”
Warily, the campaign agreed but still called the rap star’s management to ask him not to say anything about McCain or Palin onstage, for fear that the rapper would make crude or incendiary remarks that would wind up on Fox News. Jay-Z agreed not to riff on the Republican candidates, but he said he wanted to perform a song, “Blue Magic,” that includes the line “Push, money over broads, f––– Bush/Chef, guess what I cooked? Made a lot of bread and kept it off the books.”
At a concert on Oct. 5 in Miami, Jay-Z decided to skip the line about Bush, but the crowd, familiar with the words, roared it out anyway, as giant portraits of Bush and Obama lit up the backdrop. The incident passed largely unnoticed by the media—and the Obama campaign registered 10,000 new voters in Miami.
“Walking-around money” is an old and somewhat disreputable political practice of dispensing cash to local pols, grass-roots community leaders and preachers to get out the vote on Election Day, particularly in poorer areas inhabited by racial and ethnic minorities. As money changes hands, a certain amount of winking is typically involved; not all of the funds go to, say, hiring drivers or passing out leaflets, and the recipients are not shy about asking. (During the Robert F. Kennedy campaign for president in 1968, Kennedy operatives made sure not to bid up the going rate for walking-around money, or to hand it out too early, lest they have to pay twice.)
On Oct. 21, Michael Strautmanis was riding, along with a NEWSWEEK reporter, through the streets of Philadelphia in an aged Honda Accord driven by a baby-faced law grad who had volunteered for the campaign 10 days earlier. Strautmanis had been a close friend of Michelle and Barack Obama since he worked at the same Chicago law firm in the late ’80s. He was on his way—or so he thought—to a one-on-one meeting with a local Democratic congressman. But word arrived that the meeting had been expanded to include the Democratic city committee, a local power center in Philadelphia’s Democratic politics. One of the city committee’s roles was as collector and dispenser of walking-around money. Obama had refused on principle to hand out walking-around money during the Pennsylvania primary, which he lost by eight points.
“I’m not doing that,” Strautmanis said, to no one in particular. He quickly called a friend to arrange a place where he could meet with the congressman—alone. Next was a meeting with a state senator, who greeted Strautmanis like an old friend, even though they had never met. The state senator said he was in awe of Obama. “He’s the greatest bulls–––ter in the world!” the politician exclaimed. “I know he’s bulls–––ting me, but it feels good!” Sensing he was perhaps being a little too frank, the state senator said, “I want to be as helpful as I can.” Strautmanis said the campaign planned to “overwhelm the system” with a massive turnout. They planned to have volunteers knock on every door of every likely voter in Philadelphia, three times—on Saturday, Monday and Election Day. The trick then was to get them to the polls. The state senator suggested buses “with AC and a health-care worker onboard” for senior citizens. “And street money,” the senator said. “I know you guys didn’t do it in the primary, but…”
Strautmanis continued, asking, “What about the churches?” The senator became a little vague, or perhaps coy. “The churches are …” he began, pausing. “They’re in a different place.” He suggested some churches might hold out support if they’re not courted, but, the […continued on page 2]
