Urgent Care Needed in South Sudan

10th September 2013

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“Twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week… People come in all the time, from all directions… We are the only ones here to help them, and we are the only witness for Christ among these people. Here, we do just a little to help, but God is with us. We can’t do anything by ourselves.”

Dr Atar is the only full-time physician in South Sudan’s Maban County, where the demand is overwhelming to treat thousands of patients at Bunj Hospital, the only medical centre in the county.

Samaritan’s Purse is calling for urgent help to meet the overwhelming demand to treat thousands of patients in desperate conditions in South Sudan’s Maban County. Bunj Hospital is the only medical centre in Maban County, which has a population of more than 200,000, including over 110,000 refugees.

Sudanese Hospital Conditions

“The hospital is beyond maximum capacity every day,” said Samaritan’s Purse UK’s Head of Programmes and Projects Chris Blackham, who just returned from visiting their work in South Sudan.

Samaritan’s Purse has recently helped to expand Bunj Hospital by adding a new ward and operating theatre, but we desperately need additional funding to develop the hospital further to cope with the huge intake of thousands of patients in desperate conditions. But they have plans to add new facilities that will enable staff to provide life-changing treatment for another 175 people every week.

We are also urgently appealing for doctors to come and serve at the hospital for at least a month. “We particularly need surgeons and medical professionals who could come and assist Dr Atar and would be able to work with refugees and provide medical services,” said Dan Stephens, Samaritan’s Purse South Sudan Area Coordinator.

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Chris Blackham added: “We saw children being treated for severe malnutrition, women being nurtured back to health after life-threatening beatings, men learning to walk again after bombs shattered their limbs, and amidst it all families bringing new life into the world through childbirth.

Every day around 100 people are being treated, each one of these with a life-changing story, the most significant part of which is the fact they are now alive and well thanks to Dr Atar and his team.

They are working under enormous pressure with very basic tools and an ever-increasing line of new patients needing urgent assistance. God is their strength and they need your prayers to maintain this supernatural feat.”