South Sudan Hopes Needs Will Be Met by New Government

25 January 2011

The maternity ward at Juba's main hospital may be under equipped, but it is as clean as its over-worked staff can keep it.

This is the best-equipped hospital in southern Sudan. It has only six doctors and one formally trained mid-wife. It treats patients from all over the region because local clinics have even less to offer.

Nurse Margaret Wodogo has worked here for nearly 30 years. She says the biggest problem is the lack of medicine and equipment.

"For my ward, really we need mattresses," said Wodogo. "We need bed sheets. We need beds. We need tables like cupboards for the patients. We need also instruments like forceps. We need a lot really."

Many mothers-to-be arrive suffering from malaria, diarrhea and respiratory diseases. These are preventable, but are rampant in the region because of a lack of sanitation and health-care facilities.

Meningitis, measles, yellow fever and whooping cough are also endemic in some areas as well as river blindness, sleeping sickness, cholera and polio.

Dr. Lul Riek is the head of community health at the Health Ministry. He says southern Sudan's health statistics rank among the lowest in the world.

More than two percent of mothers die in childbirth and one out of every seven children dies before the age of five. He says only 16 percent of the 8 million population have access to health care.