AFRICA/SOUTH SUDAN - Inauguration of the pediatric wing of the hospital in Yirol

Tuesday, 11 March 2014

Yirol (Agenzia Fides ) – Although the situation in the Country is unstable, on Saturday, March 8th the NGO Doctors with Africa Cuamm inaugurated a new pediatric ward of the hospital in Yirol which will accommodate about 3,500 sick children a year.
The facility has a capacity of 20 beds and is composed of two rooms with 10 hospital beds in each room, two rooms for the medical and nursing staff, a warehouse, and acceptance clinic and a room that will be used as the intensive care unit (with 10 beds). The building is surrounded by a large veranda. "This is a tiny miracle if one thinks that the work, which began in June 2013, were completed even in the middle of the ongoing war, during the most acute period of clashes between late December and mid-January", said Don Dante Carraro, director of Cuamm.
"This building was built from scratch to increase the services offered to children and improve the quality. Now, finally, we have this great new building", said John Akec, the hospital administrator.
In South Sudan, the youngest Country in Africa suffers from dangerous internal instability, poverty and malnutrition which are combined with a fragile health system, in particular regarding mother-child care. Infant mortality affects 135 children per 1,000; 32.9% of children under 5 are underweight, and of these 13.5% are severely malnourished. Only 2.7 % of children under the second year of life are completely vaccinated. The hospital in Yirol is a reference point for a population of 400 000 inhabitants. In 2006, Cuamm took up the challenge to re-open after the civil war. In addition to the new pediatric ward there is also an operating room and surgical wards, delivery room and the department of obstetrics and gynecology, department of medicine, pharmacy and laboratory, ambulatory for outpatients and Emergency Room, maternal-child clinic. Last year alone, the hospital guaranteed 41 949 outpatient visits, 8,677 hospitalizations, 8,933 prenatal visits, 1089 deliveries, 44,205 vaccinations. (AP) (Agenzia Fides 11/03/2014)


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