South Sudan: With Health Needs at Emergency Levels, Fighting Hinders Aid Response | Doctors Without Borders

South Sudan: With Health Needs at Emergency Levels, Fighting Hinders Aid Response | Doctors Without Borders:

 The ongoing fighting in South Sudan is having increasingly serious consequences for the country’s population, says the international medical organization Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF). Medical needs are mounting while resources are dwindling due to the departure of many international organizations. But with instability hindering the ability of remaining aid groups to deliver assistance, an already difficult situation is getting even worse.

“Highly vulnerable people have just become even more vulnerable," said Raphael Gorgeu, MSF’s head of mission in South Sudan. “We don’t know what will happen to the thousands of displaced and wounded people across the country.”

Even before the recent fighting broke out three weeks ago, 80 percent of all health care and basic services in South Sudan was provided by nongovernmental organizations. Still, many people had limited access to medical assistance. Most pregnant women were unable to give birth in a medical facility. There were limited treatment and vaccination options for children. And refugees taking shelter in the country were receiving the bare minimum of assistance.

South Sudan 2013 © Judy Waguma/MSF

An MSF staff member in a consultation with a young patient in a clinic set up in a school in Awerial.