As part of LSTM’s 125th anniversary event series, we were delighted to welcome Professor Najla Al-Sonboli , as special guest speaker at our annual Leverhulme Lecture 20 June 2024.
Professor Al-Sonboli, an LSTM alumna, returned to her former student city to give her first public lecture outside Yemen, where she is head of the Paediatric Department at Al-Sabeen Hospital for Maternity and Children in the city of Sana’a.
For the last eight years, she has led a team to deliver essential healthcare for extremely vulnerable children and babies amid ongoing war, disease outbreaks and severe food shortages. In recognition of this outstanding work, Professor Al-Sonboli has been recognised as a ‘Heroine for Health’ by the World Health Assembly.
Delivered to an audience of more than 100 people at Liverpool’s atmospheric Victoria Gallery & Museum and also streamed online, Professor Al-Sonboli’s lecture ‘Tragedy of War: partnerships and strategies to deliver essential health care to vulnerable Yemeni children and babies’ critically explored approaches to delivering health services in challenging environments.
You can watch her lecture in full by visiting our YouTube channel or by watching the video below. During the lecture you will be exposed to some content which you may find distressing. There will be repeated references to war and conflict with first hand experiences of illness and trauma which are discussed.