By Taban Henry
The Bhar El Ghazal Nurses and Midwifery Association has rated the Bahr el Ghazal Region as the least in the country in terms of health care system.
This came on Sunday during the swearing in of new Executive Members of the Bahr el Ghazal Nurses and Midwifery Association in the universities and higher institutions of learning (BNAMSA)
Speaking during the opening, the President of Bhar El Ghazal Nurses and Midwifery Association Abraham Malaul Ajuut said that Bahr el Ghazal and Upper Nile regions ranks the least in the country when it comes to health care system.
“Bahr el Ghazal is the worst performing state in terms of nurse, why because there is a believe, when I left the state one of my colleague asked me when will I touch the vagina, they believed that your work is only that the work of the midwife is only about delivery, I am telling you that the essential fighters of the health care are Nurses and Midwifes so we formed the association to eradicate this believe,” he said.
Malual questioned, how someone who is having food be hungry when he is the person cooking food. He cited that in the context of the leadership, the leadership post is in the hands of Bahr El Ghazal and though the First Vice president hails from Upper Nile, the Minister of Health is from Bahr El Ghazal.
He questioned why the Bhar El Ghazal Region is down in terms of Nurses and Midwifes numbers yet they are the very people leading the government.
He added that they formed (BNAMSA) in order to look in to the situational Analyzes of the healthcare status of the community adding that the assessment they did in Bahr El Ghazal is totally zero saying something has to be done not because of tribalism but so that Bahr El Ghazal has to have more nurses and midwifes, something he terms as official joke.
“In June last year, we started forming the association as students from Bahr El Ghazal who are in the universities and other higher institutions of learning based on three data collection. The health care system, the number of institutes that are opened in Bahr el Ghazal and the number of healthcare centers in the area,” Malual added.
He describes the situation in the region as an official joke saying the number of health centers in the whole country is 1596 primary healthcare units and the number of Primary Healthcare Centers is 1403 meanwhile the number of nurses and midwifes are 1556 adding that the country got independent in 2011 up to the present time.
“In Abyei we have twenty PHCC and 30 PHCU with six registered midwifes, Abyei has a population closed to 200,000 with only six midwifes responsible to manage whole population and the number of nurses are ten, coming to lakes 22 PHCC and 30 PHCU and the number of nurses are 19, Lakes has a population of 600,000 according to the 2008 census the 19 nurse has to manage this population. In medicine all people are sick unless you are taken for medical examination and your confirmed, this is also official joke, northern Bahr El Ghazal PHCC are 30, PHCU are 40 nurses are 20 midwifes are 27 and Awiel is the leading State in terms of population,” he explained.
Malual stated that to divide this mathematic each nurse is to care for 2000 people and the international capacity is supposed to carter for only three patience’s that means that the two regions are still beating the drum of official joke so with this data they realized that there is still a serious liberation struggle in Bahr el Ghazal.
He added that the association is to advocate for more Nurses and Midwifes to be train in the region saying that the whole region has only 7 institutes that is to train over 4 million people in order to advocate for more healthcare centers to be established in Bahr el Ghazal.
Meanwhile Agok Makur who doubles as the Deputy Minister of Finance and the Chief Guest has revealed that the ministry of Finance is preparing a budget in order to improve the health system in the Country
“We as the ministry of Finance are working on the budget that is putting prioritize on the health and the education sector because our health system in the country is really dire,” he said.
The minister encourages the public to join the field of nursing and Midwifery citing it as an important career saying that those who undermines these profession do not know how important nursing and Midwifery, so the government recognizes the profession as the people of South Sudan.