BY RUOT GEORGE W. MUT
Dear management of Juba Teaching Hospital (JTH), greetings from me and my family. I hope this letter finds you well in your esteemed offices and I plead from the bottom of my heart for your consideration of my sincere concern.
First, I appreciate the whole fraternity of JTH for their dedication to saving humanity in this prestigious national institution with dignity, skills, and experiences through the effort of your team staying at the facilities 24 hours a day, sometimes with no electricity and other favorable conditions, for the patients in the hospital.
The reason for writing this letter is to express my deepest disappointment over what I saw at the maternity ward on Saturday 21 September 2024 when I took my wife for safe delivery in the hospital as required by health practice. This is the second time my wife has given birth in this hospital.
The hospital, to my dismay this time, is deploying students from various health institutes such as the Juba School of Nursing and Midwifery and other health science institutes in the hospital premises to handle patients in the wards.
Two scenarios made me skeptical while my wife was at the hospital. The first incident was when the student doctors, who are sometimes called paramedics, asked me to bring four people to donate blood as they claimed my wife had a low blood count when the laboratory tests in the same hospital indicated that the blood count stood at 8.5.
Another concern that forced me to introduce myself as a journalist was an incident when another student doctor, this time a female, was unable to mix medicine meant to speed up the labor and delivery process. She later wanted to put the wrong ringer fluid when I had to walk to a senior elderly midwife who was seated at the pharmacy upstairs next to the delivery room when the correct ringer fluid called LS was given to me to be mixed with the medicine to start a speedy labor process.
The final concern that made me very angry was that at around 10:30 a.m., the student doctors again sought my consent to have my wife taken to the surgical room for operation claiming that she would not be able to deliver normally.
I became very impatient and told them that I would rather take my wife home. This is the fourth time this woman is giving birth in the hospital why would she fail to deliver normally this time?
The senior midwives on duty at that point began to pay attention to my case, and attend to my wife and my wife gave birth to a baby girl who was normal and healthy at around 11:30 a.m. just one hour after disagreeing with them. I thanked all of them for attending to my case and safely facilitating the process of delivering my dear daughter, I distributed sweets and paid them a small amount of cash, SSP 50,000, as a token of appreciation for their dedication to service in the face of hardships during this difficult time in the history of nation building including the none payment of salaries for civil servants who should have been on duty. I wish I had more cash. I told them I fully understand their working conditions as I work in the media industry.
Three other women were recommended for surgeries, fortunately, all of them delivered without any complications within an hour or two after their families refused to accept surgeries.
My wife and our daughter were discharged from the hospital bed at 2:00 p.m. on Saturday 21 September and the celebration of the birth continues at home.
The reason for writing this letter to your dear office is that many lives are being handled by an experimental kind of operation by students on internship against ethical guidelines of health practice which is punishable by law.
I would like to request your esteemed office to organize a surprise visit to those who are supposed to be on duty to assess whether they are doing their jobs or not. Many lives may be lost unknowingly and as a patriotic son of this country, a national journalist, and a human rights activist, history will not forgive me if I do not raise this concern to people who might find solutions to this grave concern.
Sincerely.
Ruot George W. Mut
Juba, South Sudan.