Sennar Hospital is overcrowded with patients who are mostly suffering from malaria and infections. A reliable source told Radio Tamazuj that the hospital and the health centers receive more than 300 patients every day.

They suffer malaria, infections and skin rashes resulting from stagnant water in surrounding villages with no water channels to drain the water.

“From early in the morning you will find there are already 300 patients who need to be attended to and by the time it turns 2:00 p.m., the doctor will drop the pen and say ‘I’m tired I cannot treat anyone,’” a source from Sennar told Radio Tamazuj on Thursday.

The informant also explained that malaria drugs are too expensive for the poor: “Another thing is that when you go out there looking for medicine for malaria it is rare. Now the malaria medicine which was bought on insurance at 8 pounds is now 43 pounds, and a new treatment they introduced called ‘kafua’ is 24 tablets for 53 pounds. That means a poor man cannot buy malaria drugs.”

The source accused the authorities of being reluctant and not serious in doing their duties. But he noted that state government reportedly spent 9 billion pounds on a campaign to eradicate malaria through spraying.