The Juba Teaching Hospital is seeking a contribution of $30,000 to complete the amount it needs to repair CT scan (Computed Tomography) after receiving $20,000 from the Chinese government and $10,000 from Zain company, its medical director has said.
Dr. Maker Isaac, stated in an interview on Wednesday after receiving Zain contribution, that the facility had ran out of CT scan or computed tomography services since the machine broke down two months ago.
“We try to fix it but we don’t have somebody here [South Sudan] who can fix that machine. So, we brought technician from Kenya who work with the original company which brought the machine to South Sudan,” he explained.
Without facts from the Juba Electricity Distribution Company (JEDCO), the medical director said the power faults contributed to the break down of the only radiology machine within the country main hospital.
“It has broken down because the electricity we have is completely different from the one in china,” he claimed.
The sensitive machine or the Computed tomography (CT) scan was donated by the Chinese government in 2019 to the radiology department of the Juba Teaching Hospital to transform and improve the radiology services within the public hospital.
However, when it broke down; the country had no technicians that repair the machine letting the administration sent for Chinese company technician in Nairobi and found out that the default cost $60,000 to repair it and now the management struggles to raise the money as the government could not respond as urgently as needed.
“The defect which was found in the CT scan cost about $60,000 dollars that we don’t have and we cannot afford to operate the hospital without having the machine because it is a very important machine for treatment of the people of South Sudan,” Dr. Maker lamented.
These medical services are usually expensive to be afforded by the low class people.
Juba Teaching Hospital is the government and main country hospital that the public and the vulnerable groups go to for treatment and such services which they could not afford in the private clinics.
“We are the only hospital which treat poor people. People who comes to Juba teaching hospital are the poor of the poor and the marginalized who cannot afford to buy X-tray leave alone CT scanner. CT scan is very expensive machine. It cost like $500 dollars to have CT scan but in Juba Teaching Hospital, we do it with 60,000 pound for the person who has money but for the poor, we do it for free,” Maker said.
“We have presented it [the break down of machine] to the government and it’s a process, they have to write to the ministry of finance and these days people are in the period of the new budget and this Ct scan cannot wait,” He said.
“We don’t know when the budget will be passed, the process of getting money from the finance usually takes long and this machine is very sensitive and people are dying. We cannot wait for the government to response but we believe at the end of the day, they will fix it when they are ready.”
The medical director said the administration is embarked on resources mobilization to repair the the machine. “We wrote like 13 letters or more to all the business men and Zain responded to us plus the Chinese government who paid about $20,000 dollars,”
He assured, “We are going to fix it as soon as possible when we get the $60,000 dollars, the technician is ready. We will call him, he will come and fix it in one day and then we will resume work,”
The official said he will present the contribution he received from Zain and Chinese government to the government and well wishers, and push them to pay the balance of the cost.
“We will go back to the government and whoever that we think can help us and tell them that we got this and maybe your contribution [can complete the amount]. We will make them feel ashamed and pay money,” he said following the delayed in government respond.
Engineer Khalid A. Moniem, Chief Executive Officer of the Zain telecommunication company recalled the scenario at the service center the last time he visit the facility.
“I went myself and I saw the number of people that are being served by this hospital…the number of people visiting the hospital and the hospital capabilities surely tells us that this hospital with this volume of people, needs a lot of support. That’s why as cooperate social responsibility, we decided it will be one of our focus,” Eng. Khalid said after demonstrating the act of social cooperate responsibility on Wednesday in his office.
