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In a country with one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the world, a small clinic committed to reproductive health care for more than 200,000 people is about to close. Moms who seem worried know all too well what will happen next.
“If the hospital closes, we will die more because we are poor,” said a pregnant woman who gave her call only as Chuti. She attended a monthly check-up at the Mingkaman Reproductive Health Clinic in that White Nile town, and this may be her last.
The United Nations has announced plans to end the clinic’s operations by December due to a lack of investment from European supporters and others. This is just one of many casualties in emerging countries, as humanitarian donors have been hit by one crisis after another, from COVID-19 to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The UN would say how much it costs to operate the clinic.
A loss like the one at the clinic is critically vital for others in places like Mingkaman, who, along with the rest of South Sudan, has struggled to cope with the consequences of a five-year civil war, climate impacts such as widespread flooding and persistent lack of trust that includes shocking facts and sexual violence rate.
The UN Human Rights Commission in South Sudan said the war in Ukraine had led to drastic relief in investment in emergency medical care for victims of sexual assault. time, largely invisible,” said Commissioner Barney Afako. The commission also said the government had failed to invest in critical facilities such as physical care.
This reproductive health clinic in the capital of Awarial County in central South Sudan serves a network composed largely of others displaced by civil war and flooding. This is where women who used to give birth at home now come to give birth. It is also where battered women come for treatment.
South Sudan’s maternal mortality ratio 789 deaths consistent with 100,000 live births in 2019, according to the World Health Organization. That’s more than double the rate in more evolved neighbor Kenya, according to U. N. data, while the U. S. is more than double the rate in neighboring Kenya. U. S. Rate of 23 deaths consistent with 100,000 live births in 2020, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
At least 250 women give birth each month at the Minghaman clinic, said Teresa Achuei, site manager for IMA World Health, which runs the facility. She said she only knew 3 women who died giving birth in the community, all outdoors. The clinic.
Now, she says, many women may be at risk. Our goal, our mission, is to decrease the maternal mortality rate. Every woman will have to give birth safely. If the facility closes, there will be a lot of deaths in the community,” he told The Associated Press on a scale in mid-October.
The clinic was founded in 2014, a year after the start of South Sudan’s civil war. Housed in tents as a temporary means of caring for other people displaced by the fighting, it remains improvised but operates 24 hours a day.
It is a hub of activity in Mingkaman, a network located on one of South Sudan’s main muddy roads, with no reliable electricity or running water. The army is there to respond to outbreaks of violence. forest for sale or paintings in modest local hotels.
Several expressed fears about the clinic’s upcoming closure.
“It’s going to get worse for us because it’s helping us,” said Akuany Bol, who gave birth to her three children there. She looked depressed waiting for a midwife to read about her son.
Andrew Kuol, clinical manager, said the facility sees an average of 70 to 80 patients per day. It admits 20 patients per day, twice the number of beds.
Some want to be treated in the field.
Kuol said the clinic faces shortages of medicines, anti-malarial drugs, post-rape drugs, prenatal drugs and others, due to declining donor support.
The nearest hospital is in Bor, the city in neighboring Jonglei state, where the clinic’s most confusing cases are sent. Getting there is also confusing. Without a bridge between the states, it can take an hour for a ship to cross the Nile.
As in much of South Sudan, it is difficult. And existing cases mean that few people here can move seamlessly to get physical care or anything else.
“These (displaced people) are not going anywhere because there is a lack of trust and also flooding,” said James Manyiel Agup, Awerial County’s fitness director here in Lakes State. He suggested that UN partners continue to support the life-saving agreement.
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