Authorities should address water crisis at Juba Teaching Hospital
It has been over one week since the medical personnel working at Juba Teaching Hospital raised concerns about the lack of water and other essentials to run the facility.
On Monday, a midwife working at the Juba Teaching Hospital told The City Review about the horrible situation they are going through as they struggle to deliver babies.
“You find midwives are working, but there is no water, even for cleaning equipment. You know, after every procedure you are supposed to wash, but now there is no water, no sanitiser, even cleaning the equipment becomes very difficult; mothers want to use water, but there is nowhere they can find water,” the midwife said.
This is a serious situation that requires the urgent intervention of the minister of health together with the South Sudan Urban Water Cooperation to address the problem. Juba Teaching Hospital is one of the country’s main referral hospitals that handle most health cases across the country and cannot operate without water.
We all know that water is life and it is one of the essential basic needs that no one can survive without it. Unfortunately, its shortage is now being felt seriously in a very vital facility; a hospital. There is no way a health facility can be run without water as per the statement by a midwife working at Juba Teaching Hospital.
Despite other challenges, the hospital was supposed to have a constant water supply to meet the demand of the people seeking services at the facility.
Water plays an important role in the health care field including washing surgical tools and equipment. Water is essential to the effectiveness of the health facility so, its shortage could lead to poor hygiene and unfavourable conditions for the growth of many bacterial and some protozoal microbes and waterborne diseases.
So, what do expect if the midwives are not able to clean the kits they are using for delivering babies? The mothers are not able to clean themselves? This is a serious case that requires an urgent intervention of the ministry of health to sort out the problems that have brought about the shortage of water at Juba Teaching Hospital.
Alternatively, if the ministry cannot afford to pay for water being supplied by the Urban Water Cooperation, then it should construct a water plant that would be supplying water to the hospital. They can construct a borehole outside the premises of the hospital that could be pumped by a windmill or solar to supply water to the hospital.
However, there is no need to overemphasise the importance of water to human life as well as in health facilities. So, the authorities should address the perennial water crisis at Juba Teaching Hospital.