Kajo-Keji faces acute drug shortage

Kajo-Keji County government has expressed fears over a looming health crisis,  saying the area hospitals have exhausted all the medicines in their stock.

 The county leadership laments that currently, there are no drugs to treat the patients.

The county medical director Dr. Segowat Savior Cleva said most patients among them pregnant women were being referred to Moyo District in neighboring Uganda for treatment.

“The challenges are huge, and beyond our limit that needs the attention of the world to consider doing something for the health system, particularly in Kajo-Keji County. This increased number of people coming needs to address the issue of health,” said Dr. Savior.

He was speaking to The City Review in a telephone interview yesterday from Kajo-Keji County.

Dr. Savior said there were only two units functional in the area– antenatal and HIV/AIDs units run by the NGOs— and that they were only providing primary healthcare services.

He said the patients in need of secondary healthcare services were being referred to Uganda.

The officials said there is no center to care for the children suffering from malnutrition.

Meanwhile, County Commissioner Kenyi Eresto said the healthcare service in the area requires joint efforts from the government and humanitarian agencies to avert the situation.

“It is a challenging situation that we are facing. We have some health units that are functional with the support from the organisation but there are no drugs,” he said.

He said: “It is now not the responsibility of the government alone but a collective responsibility of the government, developmental agencies, and humanitarian organizations to join hands together to support the health service in Kajo-Keji.

“These are in terms of renovation of the hospital and other health units that have been destroyed including the provision of drugs.”

Ernesto said despite the recent deployment of health workers in the area by the government, the lack of drugs was making the doctors refer the patients to Juba.

He said to due to the poor Kajo-Keji-Juba road, they often negotiate with their Ugandan counterparts to allow South Sudanese access treatment in Moyo Hospital.

In September,  the Commissioner of Kapoeta North County in Eastern Equatoria State Emmanuel Lolimo Epone said the area was facing a health crisis as only two out of 16 health units were functioning.

“The communities often lose their relatives on their way to health facilities in Kapoeta North because the nearby health facilities are not working. We have only two health facilities out of 14 providing health services to the local community,” Lolimo told the City Review in September this year.

The youngest African Country, South Sudan, has a fragile health system with the government depending on humanitarian agencies to fund the majority of the healthcare centers in the country.