Let’s prune conflicts at infancy and not paralyse institutions

A conflict is a normal part of any social or institutional setup because humans are expressive when it comes to exploring their feelings.

However, the challenge of conflict lies in how one chooses to deal with it.  Several people often tend to address conflict with another conflict, which in reality will not address the root cause of the issue. It instead creates more fictional tensions. Conflict is unavoidable; we can have conflict in a society or families but the most important thing to do is to ensure that it does not slip out of hand.

We should always try to resolve any conflict as soon as possible, at the earlier stage before it gets out of human hands. But the tendency of avoiding or trying to ignore conflict when it is visible is the not best way of resolving conflict. This is because in a real sense it will not even address an inch of the problems.

So, it is better to face the conflict and address the root cause. For instance, if your children are complaining of a lack of food in the family you cannot just decide to divorce or take negative steps against their mother who even might be starving as well.

This is just like solving the problem with another problem that does not address the root cause of the problem. And, sometimes, it will create more conflict than before because unresolved conflict often results in a serious crisis once comes out again.

While conflict is a normal part of any social and organizational setting, the challenge of conflict lies in how one chooses to deal with it. Concealed, avoided, or ignored; the conflict will likely only grow into resentment and cause factional infighting within an organization.

Enough with the analogy and it is time to put this into perspective.

Currently, the ministry of health seems to be in a deep crisis that started as an attempt to address the demands of the doctors’ union at the public health units that resulted in the restructuring of some medical professionals in the health ministry. And as of now, it is eliciting countering statements between the ministry and the body responsible for Service Cluster in the R-TGNoU.

The push and pull, characterised by appointments and revoking of the appointments has turned into an ugly that befits condemnation. There is an adage that goes: when the elephants fight, it is the grass that suffers. This means that the unsettling arm-twisting battle at the ministry means nothing constructive for the ordinary South Sudanese who look up to these institutions for medical help. 

Therefore, it is important to note that anything and everything can create conflict but the reality is that the root causes of most conflicts are either born out of poor communication or the inability to resolve the immediate conflict that sometimes ends up creating another conflict. Always it is better to try to resolve conflict to avoid creating more doors for conflicts.