The Bor Hospital management reports hundreds of cases of malaria at the hospital last week, many of whom were offered only mild pain relievers rather than actual malaria treatment owing to a shortage of essential drugs.

Abraham Gai, Director General of the Bor Hospital, said there were 600 malaria cases last week. He claimed that the drugs are not being made available in the hospital wards even though there were supplies in the stores.

“Now we have drugs in our stores but... we are given only 1-2% of the total drugs we are supposed to get,” Gai said on Tuesday in an interview.

However, the director urged the people to bear with their government and work hard to raise some money to buy the drugs from their own pockets. “We are also captives of the economy,” he added, referring to the poor financial situation of the government of South Sudan.

The director who also carries out surgeries since he is the only surgeon at the state hospital pointed out they have no blood bank to help patients who run short of blood in critical stages of illnesses.

“We have challenges in the hospital and these are not our challenges because we presented them to the health ministry,” Gai said pointing the finger to the ministry of health.

Gai did not accuse specific individuals but rather the ‘hierarchical order of the system’ in the state health ministry, saying they presented their needs to the health ministry for approval but these requests were not respected.

“Till now, there is no any facility for blood bank in the entire state hospital,” he stressed.