The International Committee of the Red Cross says that it has not been able to return its medical staff permanently to Kodok owing to insecurity in the area, leaving the hospital short on qualified medical personnel. Kodok had the only fully functioning hospital in western Upper Nile State before the hospital staff were forced to flee earlier this month.

ICRC staff supporting the hospital were evacuated from the Kodok area to Juba on 6 July after fighting nearby and the explosion of two rockets very near the hospital, killing at least two people including one patient. After surgical personnel left the hospital, an additional 11 patients died.

Layal Horanieh, Communication and Law Coordinator for ICRC in South Sudan, explained that the departure of most of the staff temporarily left a large number of patients in the care of only three non-medical staff. Since then a number of the hospital's medical staff have returned, bringing the current number of Ministry of Health staff on the site to 21.

This compares to a staff level of 70 before the evacuation, including both Ministry staff and ICRC staff and surgical teams.

Houranieh pointed out that none of the hospital staff in Kodok now have any surgical expertise, saying also that there are no doctors, only the hospital director and a few medical assistants. “There is no doctor, it is just nurses and medical assistants at this point... it's barely a third of what the staff was,” she said.

However, ICRC managed to evacuate 12 of the most critically wounded patients to Lankien in Jonglei, where MSF have a field hospital. ICRC teams have also been able to visit the Kodok Hospital several times by air in order to provide assistance, but they are not based there.

“We've not found a permanent solution as such because Kodok just seems to be on the frontline,” said Horanieh. “We've not returned to Kodok in the manner that we were working before.”

She said also there were indications that a lot of people left Kodok heading northward or elsewhere in the state. “We're looking at relocating our medical services inland to ensure our patients are not caught in the crossfire.”

File photo: Kodok Hospital (ICRC)  

Related:

Wounded patients dying in Kodok without medical care (10 July)