South Sudan’s Shattered Health System

Years of corruption have damaged South Sudan’s healthcare system to the point where a state governor had to fly to Kenya for treatment after developing high blood pressure. Riek Gai Kok is the governor of Jonglei state, where tensions between the government and opposition parties have flared up again.

Humanitarians described his journey to Nairobi as yet another evidence of how South Sudan’s elite, regarded as the most corrupt in the world by Transparency International, have allowed the country’s services to crumble.

As the country devolves back into civil conflict between different parties, what little healthcare there is is virtually completely funded by foreign donors, with NGOs such as the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and Doctors Without Borders (MSF) providing more than 80 percent.

A soldier in Juba told AFP that he was shocked to be evacuated to the hospital, as most wounded are allowed to die.”When I was shot, I thought I was dead,” said 33-year-old Ajuong Deng, who was wounded in the leg.

However, it was the ICRC, not the army or the government, who rescued him and treated him at their unit within the Juba Military Hospital, where the NGO pays personnel what it euphemistically calls “incentives” because it is not legally permitted to pay them.

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