South Sudan Needs To Invest In Its Medical Personnel

I have been contemplating on this issue for a while, until a week ago when a colleague of mine (a foreigner) encouraged me to write something on this, and I believe its worth devoting time to write as far as its pertinence is concerned.

I have been baffled as to what is happening now with our medical personnel (e.g., clinical officers, Medical assistants, nurses, medical doctors and pharmacists) in Southern Sudan, and what will happen tomorrow considering the long way this semi-autonomous region needs to go in terms of realizing some of the millennium development goals. This concern has something to do with good leadership in the Ministry of health. The Ministry needs a sober leadership to make sound policies that can guide and steer the country in a right direction. Failing to do this will result to continued suffering of the civil populace regardless of their proximity and spatiality respectively.

It's with dismay to write this article because at the back of my mind I conceive has happened and still happening to our medical personnel in Southern Sudan is worrying with regard to delivering health services to the communities in various levels. I noticed with concern that, as much as the GOSS Ministry of health keeps saying that it is lacking qualified medical professionals to enable it provide better and quality services to the people, still the whole thing is not a question of lacking them but indeed losing the well trained medical practitioners to relief organizations. Some of the major problems facing Southern Sudan now and in the near future are that almost all the trained personnel in the medical field have taken up employments with a good number of international NGOs both in relief and development arenas. They abandoned their area of specializations in search for better payments, better positions and more importantly better medical cover for their families. Almost 90% of the trained medical personnel in Southern Sudan are working for NGOs; most of which are relief organizations in various sectors, not necessarily health related but anything a person finds to feed his/her children or relatives better. Here is where they end up not utilizing their skills in medical field, but having said this I do not want to create a negative impression that changing careers should be discouraged because it is normal for one to change careers as long as it is done within limits and desired choice.

Would it be fair and justifiable for the Ministries of health in various states to assert that they are lacking highly trained cadres in medical field? In my humble opinion, it's definitely no. Southern Sudan is not short of health personnel but they are just losing them to NGOs where they end up not doing or practicing what they were trained to do or practice in the first place. Southern Sudan has relatively enough manpower in terms of the number of health personnel but we are not just taking keen interest to invest in them for the present generation and the generation to come. Thus, it is misleading to say or assume that we do not have qualified medics to help treat the ailments of our vulnerable populations where preventive medicine fails.

The health ministers from states ministries never miss to pinpoint the shortage of qualified health and medical personnel from Sudan Ministry of Health (SMOH) at different levels. But my critical question has always been this: why are they crying foul when in fact it's their own making that makes it almost impossible to retain and sustain health and medical personnel? Well, excuse me you are taking these health and medical professionals for granted since you have got no strategies or methods of motivating them. This is where the problem squarely lies; it's no fun at all.

What is happening in Southern Sudan is like compromising the health of our civil populations and depriving them of quality, affordable, accessible and equitable health care as stipulated in the interim constitution of Sudan, Southern Sudan. Article 35 of the interim constitution of Southern Sudan has this to say. "All levels of government in Southern Sudan shall promote public health, establish, rehabilitate and develop basic medical and diagnostic institutions and provide free primary health care and emergency services for all citizens". We can never become better if we don't abide by the law we have promulgated!!!

Key Recommendations for GoSS and States Ministries of Health:

1. Make a mutual contract with anyone prior to sponsoring him/her to go for further medical studies to work for a certain period of time before he/she can decide to work for NGOs i.e., 3-years with the ministry of health.

2. Find ways to motivate the existing health and medical personnel by paying them better allowances and benefits in addition to reasonable salaries based on qualification and experience, and to always strive to pay them on time.

3. Keep upgrading these personnel so as to enable them become more professional with motivations of promotion as a reward for their dedication and hard work besides giving them chances to pursue their higher studies.

4. Promote some of the personnel who qualify for holding bigger positions like directors or even director generals over a period of time.

I believe that implementation of these recommendations would minimize the lost of high number of qualified health and medical personnel to NGOs in Southern Sudan because of the aforementioned reasons. The health situation in Southern Sudan is reprehensible due to the fact that the health authorities in this semi-autonomous region pay less attention to it. It's from here that Southern Sudan will begin to ripe the fruits of its health and medical personnel. Without any exaggeration, we have enough human resources in the field of medicine and health who could do the job very well at various levels of the ministries of health in Southern Sudan. The GOSS Ministry of Health, being the higher policy maker , should promulgate policies that would maintain its staff by motivating them rather than de-motivate them and crying foul.

South Sudan: Forward ever, backward never!

Deng Riak Khoryoam lives in south Sudan and can be reached at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

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