In early 1998, the former Somaliland President's wife Edna Adan Ismail used her retirement benefits to begin constructing what would be the country’s first and only teaching Maternity Hospital. Construction of the hospital is scheduled to be completed during the spring of 2002. The currently existing maternal and gynecological facilities in Somaliland are over-crowded, ill-equipped and understaffed. The establishment of the Edna Adan Maternity Hospital will provide much needed high quality reproductive healthcare, as well as standardized, professional training for the first nurses and midwives to be trained in the country in 16 years.