What happens when your country has been perpetually at war for decades? The facts are sobering and were on display during my recent trip to South Sudan.
In one region, 230 out of every 10,000 pregnant women die during childbirth. The HIV rate is 12%. Only 1 in 10 children are immunized. For a catchment population of 200,000, there were 3 physician assistants and 8 nurses.
On the other side of the country, ongoing conflict pushes 100,000 into tents, displacing local people. The hospital can't cope, despite heroic efforts, and in turn places its patients into more tents. Clinic is held under a tree.
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One of many similar images drawn by children on the walls of a destroyed nursing school in South Sudan.
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A visiting eye surgery team can perform 200 operations in a few days. A huge backlog of cataracts awaits skilled hands, the blind hoping and praying for sight.
A doctor told me of a meeting of community health workers held in a regional capital. One worker had no clothes, so he showed up in a borrowed dress. For years people lived deep in the forest, away from the main roads, avoiding any contact that smelled of danger.
What do children know? Pictures such as this one can be found all over a defunct nursing school, closed for decades. The state minister for health pleaded for help in training nurses, to drive down the maternal mortality rate and drive up the immunizations.
How do you rebuild? Slowly, painfully, it is happening. AMHF, through its on-the-ground partners, is privileged to be part of this process: providing care; buying medicines; training nurse anesthetists; constructing clinics and hospital wards; sponsoring operations and surgical teams.
You can learn more by viewing this brief slideshow.
Grace,
P.S. The African Mission Healthcare Foundation 2012 annual report is available here.
