- Daharos exceptionally outgoing knack in healthcare, tracks back to her final days in college when she was able to discern a gap in the availability of healthcare services to people especially those in Marsabit, a place that was plagued by high mortality rates, many of which emerged due to lack of access to to proper healthcare services or inefficiency of the existing facilities.
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In many areas in the North eastern parts of the country where even before the current hunger and drought crisis was an area that was still grappling with food and water shortage, some of the most basic needs including food, clothing and water are often so hard to come by. Other human needs like access to healthcare, are deemed, by far as luxury, as the unfolding humanitarian crisis has greatly worsened the peoples welfare, with the available aid only reaching out to the most dire case: food.
The absence of adequate healthcare has therefore aggravated cases of disease’s spiraling out of control, and while the hunger catastrophe shows no signs of an end in the near future, the people stare hopelessly at a bleak future which has already plunged them in an extremely precarious situation. The number of deaths in the area is rising twice as fast, with reports placing Marsabit at the top most level of the countries mortality rates. So far, approximately 488 newborn babies against a population of 100000 die each year due to absence of clinics and maternities. For locals who now say they are tired watching their people die, life has lost much value until they are also opting to end their lives. However, the arrival of a good Samaritan in 2008, a fresh, nursing college graduate who opted to start a clinic in the area has brought back smiles, given reprieve to the society and changed its agonizing narrative, which by then was breaking apart and reeling to pressure from overwhelming ailments.
Her selfless deeds and her mission to revamp the state of healthcare in Marsabit were kicked off by her concerns that the high mortality rates in the county needed an immediate response, just a few days before she graduated. With nothing much, apart from her experience in medicine and a few coins she had saved through her college life, Nurse Dahabo Bagaro started Ramata nursing home in Sololo sub county. Approximately over a decade later, the health center has risen to the position of a level 3b hospital and boasts of high tech imaging equipment’s, sexual and gender-based violence desks, modern laboratories and maternity wards that have greatly benefited the local community that would otherwise be speaking of an out-of-control disease crisis.
In 2022, Dahabos selfless deeds were recognized by the president when she was honoured with an award for the best nurse in the beyond zero health awards alongside other champions during the years, Mashujaa day celebrations. So far, the nurse who is on a relentless mission to improve the state of healthcare in the drought-stricken county and even beyond, admits to not even having inched closer to her goal, as she hopes to set up a modern maternity complex in Sololo, to bolster midwifery practices with the much needed facelift.
Dahabo is also the winner of the 2022 best achiever in midwifery in African women award among many others her passion to serve her community has brought to her.
With her great ambition, Daharo has been able to change a lot in the case of healthcare services in the remote county including by freely screening pregnant mothers, treating them for minor ailments and giving them multivitamins and supplements at zero charges. The hospital also prides itself for providing reprieve to victims of female genital mutilation by facilitating for their surgeries and psychological aids, especially when they develop complications with urine leakage.
Although the facility has greatly materialized to become a leading healthcare in the whole of Marsabit County, Dahabo hopes to expand it to bolster its capability to handle some of the very serious cases they often find themselves referring to bigger hospitals.
However, the facilities meteoric rise that has seen it become a leading hospital in the region has lifted the lid on a wider issue regarding the direness of the regions healthcare sector and the effectiveness of the existing government-owned facilities.
Through an initiative dubbed as healthy mother healthy baby, over 150 to 200 mothers have been able to receive antenatal and prenatal healthcare without charges. Residents now say the facility, a godsend gift from God, has helped them to a big extent track their purpose for life back. “We dont know where we would be at. Daharo was a gift from God” a woman from a neighbouring village said after undergoing her fifth treatment at the facility even with the fact that she never had a relative in Sololo.
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Dahabo during an AIDEX event last year.
