South Sudan’s national health minister has warned all donors and Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) investing in the health system in the country to follow the National Health Strategic Plan or leave the country.
Addressing health workers during the inauguration of the first modern mortuary at Wau Teaching Hospital in Wau on Friday, Minister Yolanda Awel Deng said coordination brings positive change in the health sector.
“All of us are contributing equally to the coordination, harmonization, and alignment of the National Health Strategic Plan. It is a sector-wide, strategic plan including the private (sector), and now I am calling all the donors and NGOs to sing that tune. If you are not willing to follow the government policy regarding the health sector, please get out of this country, you do not belong here,” she asserted. “We do not have a spare part for this nation, this is our nation and we live in it. The generation to come will live in it and we need to fix it. I am going to have a meeting with all those in the health sector in Western Bahr el Ghazal State. For those who are interested in investing in health care, we must coordinate and we must align.”
“We inherited (health) systems that were not well established, a system that was destroyed, a system that is not strengthened, so when we have a little shock like Covid-19, flooding or the upsurge of returnees from Sudan, the health system cannot withhold because it is very weak,” Minister Awel added.
She urged the players in the health sector to work together to fix the country’s health system.
For his part, Western Bahr el Ghazal State Health Minister Dr. Vincent Taban said Wau Teaching Hospital and health centers across the state, are perennially poorly supplied with essential medicines.
“The major problem at Wau Teaching Hospital is about medical or drug supplies that do not come regularly, and when they come, these are not drugs but they come as consumables. At the state level, people are suffering. Now, if you go to the county and payam levels, some primary health care centers completely lack essential medication. This is a challenge for all of us,” he said. “Honorable minister you will be shocked if we come at the level of Western Bahr el Ghazal State because the budget allocated to health is zero point something percentage.”
Dr. Taban faulted state lawmakers who pass budgets without consideration to the public health sector yet they expect their relatives to be treated at public health facilities.
He urged the national health ministry not to rely on donor funding but to instead strengthen its capacity because all health NGOs come with their priorities.
Minister Awel while reacting to issues raised by Dr. Taban, acknowledged that there are shortfalls but said she has rolled out a plan to address them.
“I am not going to say that the complaints are baseless, all of them are valid and point to the direction that something is wrong in our system and my vision as a current minster of health goes down on three things, localization, resiliency and sustainability,” she said. “If we focus on these three things and we establish ourselves, we will not need donor funding. We have enough resources in this nation.”