Malakal Teaching Hospital is still experiencing a lack of basic health care services in spite of NGO interventions, according to relatives of patients admitted to the hospital.

Last week it was reported that the hospital was still littered with waste and sewage, and overcrowded with displaced families who sought shelter after fleeing their homes. The hospital was one of several sanctuaries to which people ran when fighting engulfed the city last month.

Emergency aid group Doctors Without Borders (MSF) was forced to suspend its work when its compounds and staff were robbed and threatened at gunpoint during fighting in mid January.

International Medical Corps (IMC) sent a team of five doctors and clinical officers back to Malakal on 24 January, after the fighting had died down, and set up a clinic soon thereafter. MSF likewise returned its team to the city. 

Speaking to Radio Tamazuj yesterday, several people at the hospital complained about lack of medicines and doctors in the hospital.

They attributed the cause of their suffering to the recent conflict in the city, which forced many experienced doctors and nurses to flee and resulted in the ransacking of health facilities.

“Some people have lost their lives due shortage of medicines and good health care by the medical team in the hospital,” a citizen said. “The situation could get worse in case humanitarian organizations do not intervene to rescue the situation we are in now.”

Common ailments at the hospital include respiratory infections and malaria, the organization IMC noted in a statement on its website 31 December.

Photo: A patient being treated for multiple gunshot wounds to the face, chest and throat sits in a wheelchair in the Malakal Teaching Hospital (Carl De Souza/Getty Images)