HEALTH
Despite the obvious importance of health as coined in the popular saying “health is wealth” the health sector in South Sudan remains highly neglected and dilapidated. It is characterized by underfunding by the state, insufficient drugs, low pay, inadequate and in most cases dilapidated infrastructure, lack of basic equipment’s, inadequate numbers of skilled heath workers, we have ghost health centers and quack doctors, a collapsed primary health care, the infant and maternal mortality rate is ever increasing and the least to say, most South Sudanese are sick and cannot afford the exorbitant costs in the few available private health facilities Like Care Plus, Genesis, Juba Medical Complex and Victorious Clinic among others. The Umbrella government will in effort to “arrest” this situation make the following interventions.
- Increase the health sector budgetary allocation to 15% from the current 8% of the national budget. This health expenditure was endorsed by African leaders in the Abuja summit of 2001.
- Motivate health personnel including doctors, nurses and midwives through improving their remuneration and other conditions of service such as housing to bring to an end the currently rampant brain drain. The existing difference where a Graduate Medical Officer working in a public facility in Kenya and Rwanda earns about 4 times greater than those in South Sudan will be brought to at least zero because these are some of the countries where our health professionals are running to in search for greener pastures.
- Recruit more health workers especially doctors, nurses and midwives. The current situation where there is only one doctor available for every 28,790 persons is simply unacceptable. The Umbrella government will aim to bring the doctor-to population ratio down to one doctor for every 3000 persons.
- Today, the health situation is unbelievable and very humiliating.
For example, a senior midwife working in Juba teaching Hospital recently collapsed because of stress caused by overworking for which doctors, nurses and midwives threatened to go on strike. The hospital has only few health personnel instead of the recommended 543 as a referral hospital. Records show that this hospital receives over 1000 patients per day most of whom sleep on the floor because of lack of beds. This is a referral hospital in a famous City. The situation is deplorably unspeakable when you go down to other States, Payams and sub counties up to Boma level. Many South - Sudanese are dying of easily curable diseases when the
government’s intervention is largely absent.
Umbrella led Government will Provide adequate and relevant drugs and equipment to health centers in ten states , avail at least one ambulance to every established referral hospital including those in rural areas, rehabilitate Juba Teaching Hospital to a National Referral Hospital, build State referral hospitals and fully equip them. - More State referral Hospitals will be established to handle more health cases in order to reserve Juba Teaching hospital for its role as a national referral hospital. The Umbrella government will also install a heart surgery facility in all State referral Hospitals to enable South Sudan heart patients overcome the very difficult costs of going to Europe and India. Cancer treatment will also be accorded due attention in form of purchasing the lacking equipment’s, drugs, training and recruiting more staff.
- The state shall provide free and quality health services to all South Sudanese. It shall also be a requirement to cater for at least half of the required cost for every South Sudanese patient whose diagnosed sickness cannot be treated in the country. On the other hand, the state shall ensure that all government officials seeking medical treatment abroad on public funding face a strict policy of clearance by the medical board.
- Given the several allegations today of government health officials having ‘ghost’ health centers which are allocated drugs and payment for ‘ghost’ health workers, the Umbrella government will conduct a thorough investigation into these allegations. All culpable persons discovered will be prosecuted with a view of not only
- punishing them but also recovering the lost drugs, funds and other public property.
The situation currently is that patients are in most cases given prescriptions in public health centers and told to go and buy drugs elsewhere or else go home and prepare to die. To overcome these problems, the Umbrella government will motivate health workers with an attractive pay and improve their general welfare but also ensure that their strict supervision is done so as to be sure that they are doing their job professionally. - South Sudan has not made any gains in the control of HIV/AIDS which continue to be erode with nearly 50,000 new infections every year. The visible ant- HIV/AIDS spread campaign is mainly done by the civil society with support from the donor community while government’s participation is notably absent. However, the Umbrella led government will reform the HIV/AIDS prevention agenda, provide ant- retroviral drugs to all infected people, offer other treatment to HIV patients such as nutritional support, palliative care at free of cost and strongly support HIV/AIDS prevention methods to reverse the alarming trend of new infections. Even Tuberculosis complications have worsened in the country with negligible attendant interventions but Umbrella will ensure effective treatment and make adequate prevention campaigns.
- The Umbrella government will emphasize the sub sector of primary health care mainly to educate the community on health matters such as the use of treated mosquito nets, the inevitability of clean toilets and general personal hygiene