Africa-Press – South-Sudan. The displaced expectant mothers in Twic East County of Jonglei State lacked maternal health services as floods continued to devastate the area. Speaking to Juba Monitor, the commissioner of Twic
East County Deng Mabeny Kuot revealed that expectant mothers were the most affected by poor health services due to flood, citing that most areas were covered by
flood and people were residing at the few dry lands surrounded by water making it hard to move to the county headquarters for safe delivery and treatment.
“The health situation of pregnant women is at the high risk when it comes to delivery because they are also at those highlands
and when delivery becomes difficult, it is either you lose mother or lose both due to lack of equipment and no boat to act as means of transport for referring
these women to the county headquarters for better health services” Deng said. He elaborated that the county authorities had relocated most health units to highland where there was now water, He added
that most unit lack tents, but merely operated under trees and at time with no drugs “County authority and the county health department managed to relocate the health centers, four health centers are functioning at
the highland and three other primary care units are also functioning at the highland making total to Eight and one Mobile Outreach that is mobile clinic
making a total of Nine functioning health centers in the county currently, but with few or no drugs and equipment” he complained. “There are no good health facilities at the highland
where people are residing. Most Health Units operate in tents and under trees except the health center in Panyagor” he added. Deng called on the government to response urgently.
He added that water level continued to increase while health situation continued to deteriorate “We urge the government and the partners to add more tents and necessary drugs that we are lacking, especially the anti-malarial
drugs, anti-biotic drug for instance injection, Paracetamol and the painkillers that we don’t have in the county” he appealed. “Iam calling on the National Minister of Health and
the state Minister of Health to look in to that issue because the lives of people are in danger and there are so many cases coming up, there are waterborne disease cases arising, cases of snake and dog bites because the
little high ground people are inhabiting are also where these animals and reptiles stay” he explained. “Ambulances are not functional since most of the
areas are covered by water, so we appeal for speedy boat to help in relocating expectant women from highland to the county headquarter where they can easily
be monitored and treated” he added He also revealed that the displaced persons continued to repatriate to their normal areas regardless of the flood. “According to my RRC coordinator, who was checking
the returnees, in a week we do receive about 1,000 to 1,500 people returning back to the county” he revealed. “My message to the people is that disasters come and
goes so we have to be committed to control those highlands from water and the people who are in the area should be resilient and the county authorities would remain committed to deliver the necessary needs” he promised.
