Dream No. 7 Of 10: Let These Roads Bring Health Services To All Regions "As things stand, you can go to South Africa for a headache; to India for tonsils; to Egypt for appendicitis; to Kenya for blood pressure; to Uganda for indigestion;..." 17 August 2016
By Alfred Sebit Lokuji Alongside education and all its manifestations, roads and power also promote the flourishing of health services and the health industry. Roads and power are a necessary condition, but insufficient without a robust pro-health policy. This area of responsibility is almost as challenging as attitudes to gender. Policy-makers have long lived in a cocoon of their own: no health insurance coverage from which one and all can benefit. Instead they rely on a net-work of officialdom that enables them and their house Negroes to go for medical service abroad. The partial evidence is the number of dead bodies brought back to Juba alone – by air – in boxes! Just imagine for a minute that a policy indicating determination on the health of the nation begins by correcting some glaring scandals at the national “Teaching Hospital”! (With no clarification as to a mere hospital versus a referral hospital, or even Primary Health Care Centre / Unit). A morgue where flies comfortably live as if they were senior SPLM aficionados! Both out-patient and in-patient services where the sick are treated as a bothersome! A system where relatives equal or outnumber in-patients any day you visit the wards. A medical facility where doctors are seen as rarely as Haley’s comet; where most nurses behave as if they were either prison-warders or inmates themselves! Worse part of the reality is to find a pharmacy that has no aspirin – and patients are best advised to purchase their drugs at pharmacies often with close connections to segments of the health services profession. With corrective policies in place, modern diagnostics should be possible where roads and power have arrived. This would make it absurd that anybody should come to Juba for x-rays or delivery by caesarean. Corrective policy would ensure that treatment at home is the primary option before seeking treatment abroad. As things stand, you can go to South Africa for a headache; to India for tonsils; to Egypt for appendicitis; to Kenya for blood pressure; to Uganda for indigestion; and back to Juba having attained rigor mortis abroad. Life is a right, so is health-service without which life cannot be sustained. Life is life – for the Rasta boy, the red-headed cattle man, the scarified girl, the emaciated grandma, the stubbornly critical professor, the bleached-white newly wedded; the blasphemous shopkeeper; and the heartless zol kabir! Life must be preserved at all costs, for all, until the creator turns the body once more into dust - when all are entitled only to a 3.5 by 1 meter peach of land. Cuba, in spite of the hostilities it has faced for years against its giant neighbour, is hailed among the top health service providers in the world! Did not SPLM begin life as a bosom body of Cuba? Posted in: Opinions -- To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/d/forum/southsudankob View this message at https://groups.google.com/d/msg/southsudankob/topic-id/message-id For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "South Sudan Info - The Kob" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/SouthSudanKob. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/SouthSudanKob/CAJb14ooe-Rcq%3DTF7%3DLY%2ByhOLtN653JNJJQGBtUVy3ScA3JkuFg%40mail.gmail.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
