Deprived hospital reminder of dire state of health care in south Sudan
JUBA, Sudan (AlertNet) - In south Sudan's only paediatric hospital, the patients often have no choice but to share beds and when there's no space left, the mothers simply hold their children.
There is no blood bank to speak of. Children who need transfusions rely on relatives to provide blood.
Despite a lack of funds to perform operations or X-rays, progress has been made at Al Sabah Children’s Hospital in Juba in the past year with UNICEF aid workers and U.N. peacekeepers helping to renovate its wards.
The hospital has gone from seeing 20 patients a day during the few hours it used to be open to some 200 patients a day. It is now open around the clock typically treating cases of malaria, respiratory tract infections, water-borne diseases and malnutrition.
“Before, it was just terrible. It was so bad,” said Dr Justin Bruno, the hospital’s medical director, who joined Al Sabah when it was taken over by the south's semi-autonomous government in 2008.
“I had to close a ward because it was not habitable any more. Just from the way you enter, you could see it’s not healthy. When it rains, it leaks all over.”
The deprived hospital is a reminder of the dire state of health care in south Sudan, following 22 years of war against the Khartoum government which ended with a 2005 peace deal.
As part of that accord, southerners will decide on Jan. 9 whether south Sudan should secede or remain part of Sudan in a vote that is widely expected to favour independence.
"HOME IS SWEET"
One of the most urgent challenges for a newly-independent south Sudan will be providing basic health services to its 8.3 million people.
Currently 80 percent of south Sudan's health services are provided by aid agencies.
South Sudan has the second highest maternal mortality rate in the world, with one in seven pregnant women dying from pregnancy-related causes, according to the United Nations’ Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).
One in seven die before their fifth birthday, according to UNICEF, while immunisation rates are among the world’s worst with only about 10 percent of children being fully vaccinated.
Long-term success in improving health care will depend partly on the contribution made by southerners like Bruno, who came home in 2006 after years of exile in Uganda, determined to use his skills to build his motherland.
“Home is sweet. I just have that fire in me that I should go and give back what I have learned. Even if I am going to get little pay and the conditions will be harsh,” he said.
“There’s green light at the end of the tunnel and things are looking good. I’m optimistic that life is going to be much much better.”
SECURITY VS HEALTH
Security currently eats up the lion’s share of the south's budget, but Bruno was hopeful that some of these funds will be redirected to the health sector in 2011 once the referendum was over.
“The priority now, I think, for the government is the security of the country. They look at other things, like health (and say) they can wait,” he said.
“But if in January things turn out well ... those other priorities which are first will, maybe, go to the last.”
The U.N.’s humanitarian coordinator, Lise Grande, predicted an interim period of “a number of years” during which health care will continue to be delivered predominantly by humanitarian agencies.
"When you are starting from scratch and building up a system, it’s going to take a while before that system is able to deliver basic services and public goods,” she said.
But for now, expectations among southerners are sky high.
Many say they are willing to make personal sacrifices to support the dream of an independent nation.
“If you look at our history, it has all been a struggle. We are almost 500 years in the struggle. From the period of slave trade ... to the period of so-called independence in 1956, there was not much change,” said Simon Sekwat, another medic who returned from Uganda to serve the post-war government.
“January 9 seems to be the peak of everybody’s hope in the southern Sudan. That is the freedom which we have been longing for all this long time and we hope by God’s help we will get it. There are going to be a lot of changes.”
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