Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) and the Ministry of Health (MoH) officially opened a fully renovated 48-bed pediatric center at the Bentiu State Hospital, Unity State, on Thursday.
The unit will provide both outpatient and inpatient care, offering services such as vaccinations, malaria treatment, general inpatient care, and admissions from the emergency department.
“This collaboration with the State Ministry of Health is an essential step to ensure ongoing healthcare access as MSF shifts focus to rebuilding its emergency response capacity,” stated James Mutharia, MSF project coordinator for the Bentiu hospital transition.
“We aim to strengthen the hospital’s ability to deliver accessible and free healthcare services to the community as a state-run facility."
For nearly a decade, MSF has managed secondary healthcare in Bentiu’s IDP camp, serving both displaced individuals and the surrounding population. Services include emergency care, surgery, maternity, neonatal, and pediatric care, and an adult inpatient department with 135 beds.
MSF has also responded to various disease outbreaks, such as measles, hepatitis E, and malaria, while addressing seasonal health challenges.
In 2022, MSF handed over nutritional, HIV/TB, and outpatient services to partner organizations to focus more intensively on critical healthcare needs.
In 2023, MSF conducted nearly 46,000 emergency room consultations, treated over 4,300 malaria patients, and admitted 1,277 children to the inpatient therapeutic feeding center.
They also provided care for 712 expectant mothers, 1,193 surgical cases, 499 deliveries, 495 TB/HIV patients, and 1,504 measles cases.
This partnership with the Ministry of Health is part of MSF’s broader strategy to transition primary and secondary healthcare services from Bentiu’s IDP camp facility to Bentiu State Hospital by 2025.
The phased transition aims to sustain and enhance healthcare in Unity State, ensuring minimal service disruption and seamless integration with the local healthcare system.
“MSF will keep all services free of charge even after the transition is finalized,” Mutharia confirmed.
MSF expects that the maternity, surgical, and emergency rooms will move to BSH after pediatrics, with completion of this process by the end of 2025.
