Health in South Sudan

South Sudan has some of the worst health statistics in the world. South Sudan has the highest maternal mortality in the world and also very high child mortality. Its child immunisation rate is probably the lowest in the world, but accurate statistics are not available. Health provision in rural areas is very poor, but better in towns.

The poor state of health provision is largely a result of the long years of war. Many of the diseases seen are preventable and are due to poor water supply and a lack of knowledge of the causes of ill health. The inadequate provision of functioning health facilities mean that many people cannot access essential treatment for water borne diseases and malaria.

In town communities, there is a growing problem of malnutrition due to small gardens and high inflation making buying food impossible for many families, many of whom live on less than a dollar a day per head. The effects of malnutrition are largely affecting young children and pregnant mothers. An increasing number of children are dying of malnutrition and many pregnant women have dangerous levels of anaemia. It is said that a 15 year old girl in in South Sudan has a greater chance of dying in childbirth than completing her secondary education (UNICEF) There is little understanding of family planning and so women have high numbers of children. Multiple births increase the risk of both maternal and child mortality.

Most women do not have access to a trained midwife to deliver their babies. There are only around 90 doctors for the whole population of nearly 9 million residents in South Sudan.

There is a huge urgent need for all cadres of health staff to be trained for working in South Sudan. Because the need is so great for staff to be trained to work in maternal and child health, the need to train women is vital. One of the issues was that due to factors such as the war and poverty combined with the fact that many girls become pregnant as very young teenagers, there were until recently very few girls with secondary school education able to be trained as nurses and midwives. However, now as there are more girls completing secondary school, there are more girls qualified to be trained as health professionals.

Most families are unable or unwilling to pay for girls’ further education. Therefore sponsoring a girl to be trained as a health professional is an incentive to the family to allow her to delay marriage until after she is qualified.