By Mary Poni
There are; anti-malaria, painkillers and others but there are other medications that are not in the hospital because Juba Teaching Hospital is not funded and the rumours that doctors are selling public drugs is not true.
Dr. Victoria Anib, Undersecretary in the Ministry of Health said in an exclusive interview in Juba that one thing people should understand is that there is no budget allocated for the main hospital including the other public hospitals.
“We have four national hospitals; Juba, Malakal, Wau and Kiir Mayardit Women and if we have budget allocated for them, it can cater for the running of the hospitals including medication and other demanding services” said Dr. Victoria.
“If we are expecting quality services at our public hospitals, we also should expect high budget allocated to the health sectors such that they can be able to provide the right services to the people” she said.
The budget for the health sector has been very law over the past few years and the recent budget has been like 33billion South Sudanese Pounds which is very little to facilitate the health sector.
It was stated to be less than 3% of the national budget and it is not enough to provide quality services to the public hospitals.
Drugs are not sold in clinics but in pharmacies because the drugs that are donated are leveled sometimes and cannot be sold in pharmacies.
“I don’t think it is a true information” Anib doubted.
As you know that Health Pooled Fund has recently pulled out from the ten States and is no longer providing any service.
Meanwhile one of the medics who didn’t want to be identified, revealed that he has been to four hospitals within the city, that is to say Juba Teaching Hospital, Juba Military Referral Hospital, Al-Sabah Children Hospital and Buluk Eye clinic.
“What I have seen so far is that when patients go since the hospitals belong to the government, the services are free but in South Sudan is different” he said.
When patients come to the hospital, they don’t get consulted by the consultants but instead nurses attend to them or clinical officers who are at times interns and when the consultants attend to the patients, they don’t give adequate services. The anonymous health worker explained.