Patients undergoing operations at Wau Teaching Hospital are asked to provide fuel for running the power generator to get treatment amid a power outage at the facility, several patients said.

Franco Edward, a family member of one of the patients at the hospital in Western Bahr al Ghazal State, told Radio Tamazuj on Thursday that he was asked to pay 18,000 SSP for operations, including diesel for the generator.

 “For the fee for the operation, I was asked to pay 18,000 SSP, including fuel. If there is no money for fuel, the operation will not be done,” Franco said.

 “The situation now is very bad. You cannot get somebody to give you such an amount, and it was not easy for me on Wednesday to get at least a gallon of fuel. I am seeing this like there is no government in this country,” he added.

Mary Batista, a patient, said that patients’ relatives are asked by the hospital's administration to buy fuel for the hospital. “It is the sick people to bring the fuel from outside so that they can undergo operations, you can imagine now from these containers, we brought them yesterday but still we not been taken in for operations,” Mary said.

For his part, Dr Thon Mangok, the Director General at the Wau Teaching Hospital, confirmed that patients are asked to buy fuel, saying the lack of funding has forced the hospital to resort to such measures.

 “If there are some gaps, people say this is the end, but at the same time, when we don’t do this and close the services, people complain,” Thon said.

The medical director pointed out that the hospital started to struggle after the Health Pooled Fund organization, which had been providing support to the facility, withdrew.

In South Sudan, Health Pooled Fund (HPF), which used to provide drugs, equipment and contributes to salaries, cut its support to nine state hospitals by 1 August, including the one in Wau.

UK cuts to South Sudan's health care system started in May this year. Several smaller health care centres lost their support.