There are few places where the consequences of the Trump administration’s cuts to global aid programs are more apparent than South Sudan. With a raging civil war in Sudan to its north, South Sudan is contending not just with its own underserved people, but with more than a million Sudanese refugees. Special correspondent Anna Conkling of Noosphere, a new journalism app, reports.
Amna Nawaz:
There are few places where the consequences of the Trump administration’s cuts to global aid programs are more apparent than South Sudan. With a raging civil war in Sudan to its north, South Sudan, also still racked by conflict, is contending with its own underserved population and more than a million Sudanese refugees.
Special correspondent Anna Conkling of Noosphere, a new journalism app, reports from Renk in South Sudan.
Anna Conkling:
Those raspy, labored breaths are Kalia’s. She spent 15 days in the pediatric ward of this hospital in Renk just south of the Sudan border. She is just 11 months old. And like so many of the babies here, she is starving.
Woman:
So we are giving for bed two, which is 90.
Anna Conkling:
Nurse Shadiya is preparing formula for them all. In addition to the breathing trouble, Kalia has severe fever and she’s lost too much weight. Doctors are trying to formulate treatment for her.
Kout Kout, Clinical Officer, Renk Civil Hospital:
of recent weight loss, we suspect T.B. And we are treating it now.
Anna Conkling:
T.B. is…
Kout Kout:
Yes.
Anna Conkling:
… tuberculosis.
Kout Kout:
Yes, tuberculosis. And it is meningitis. Meningitis T.B. is in the brain. But the good thing for this girl is not coughing. There’s no cough. Yes, that’s the good thing of it.
Anna Conkling:
Is she expected to survive?
Kout Kout:
Actually, we are monitoring it over 24 hours. Now we will see.
Anna Conkling:
A few beds down is Azma, a 1.5-year-old Sudanese refugee who has been sick for five months. Doctors told me that her hair fell out from malnutrition. And she’s now being treated for pneumonia and sepsis, likely resulting from the malnutrition. Her mother, Fatima, says she was referred here from another hospital.
Kalia and Azma are just two of the more than 500 patients that arrive here needing help every day. But as international aid cuts decimate South Sudan’s health care system, hospitals like this one are struggling to carry on. Much of that is because of the war to the north in Sudan, from which South Sudan gained independence 15 years ago.
It is the world’s worst humanitarian crisis. Millions have been displaced internally. Millions more are now refugees, and the war has no end in sight. In Renk, the refugee influx has strained the hospital beyond a breaking point. They try to treat local cases like Kalia’s, while helping some of the up to 3,000 refugees that flee Sudan each week.
The hospital’s pharmacy plays a vital role in its ability to continue to operate. But it’s running low on medication and has no way to refill them. Dr. Suhier told us she faces the challenges of devastating aid cuts every day.
The pharmacy is completely funded by international partners. And one of the medication that they’re running critically low on are malaria tablets. And it’s the rainy season here in Renk, which means that there’s a lot more mosquitoes out and a lot more infections.
Suhier watches her supply of medication diminish with little hope that they will be replaced. Cuts to foreign programs like USAID are not only causing shortages. They’re also costing lives. Relief International, a global human rights organization based in Washington, D.C., is one of the main partners here.
But the hospital said the agency reduced its presence at the end of September. I asked Dr. Suhier what their absence will mean for the hospital.
Suhier Ahmed Deng, Pharmacist, Renk Civil Hospital:
Until now, even today, if you look to my eyes, they are so red because of thinking. We think a lot to have the solution, but we cannot tell anyone that to come and to walk in a state that we don’t have money.
Here, if there is not any support, they will die without medicine, without food, so better for them to go again to work to Sudan, to die there.
Man:
So this is the OPD site.
Anna Conkling:
Throughout the hospital, evidence of the gutting of foreign assistance is everywhere. We learned that doctors are forced to decide each day which ward most needs generator power.
So, over here is another part of the ward. And you can see that there’s not really any electricity, there’s no lights on, and when we were here on Saturday, the staff told us that this ward doesn’t really have a lot of electricity because the generator isn’t being used as a priority here.
The intensive care unit had no power at all the day we were there. It was also running low on most of the medication it needed to help its 12 patients. Despite the shortages, the hospital still hopes to serve as a stabilization point for the refugees who stream into Renk each week.
For those who need it, surgery is still being scheduled on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. The patients recover in urine-soaked rooms filled with flies and an inescapable heat. But this is the desperate state of health care today in South Sudan.
Back in the pediatric ward, one bed is now completely empty. We are told that Kalia, the 11-month-old girl who was having trouble breathing, died eight hours after our visit. The official cause was malnutrition.
The nurse said that Kalia’s death deeply saddened the parents of other patients here. Once hopeful for their child’s recovery, they now fear death. But, as we were leaving, we found baby Azma sitting up and playing with her mom. Doctors say she’s recovering from her illness and is expected to make a full recovery.
“Alhamdulillah,” says Fatima, “Praise be to God.”
For the “PBS News Hour,” I’m Anna Conkling with Noosphere in Renk, South Sudan.
