By Taban Gabriel
Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), popularly known as Doctors Without Borders, in partnership with Unity State Ministry of Health (MoH), on Thursday, 31st October 2024, “officially” launched a newly rehabilitated pediatric unit at Bentiu State Hospital.
The renovated facility, which comes with a capacity for 48 beds, will offer both outpatient and inpatient services and accommodate vaccinations, treatment for malaria, general inpatient wards, and support admissions from the emergency department, according to James Mutheria, MSF project Coordinator for Bentiu
“This is the first step towards a partnership with the State Ministry of Health that will ensure continuity of healthcare provision as MSF gears up to restore its emergency response capacity. Our next steps will focus on strengthening the hospital’s ability to provide accessible and entirely free healthcare services to the population as a State facility. We will ensure minimal disruption so that patients can continue accessing medical services smoothly during the transitional process. All the services provided and supported by MSF will continue to be free of charge even after the transition is completed,” James said.
The project Coordinator said the hospital will aid MSF to “transition all primary and secondary healthcare services from the Bentiu IDP camp facility to Bentiu State Hospital by 2025”
The newly rehabilitated pediatric unit at Bentiu State Hospital looks clean and neat. (Photo Credit supplied).
The facility further seeks to enhance health care services in Unity State with MSF and the Ministry of Health collaborating to provide support to the communities while ensuring minimal disruption of service during the shift and “for a gradual absorption into the new system of operation in the local healthcare system.”
On the other hand, MSF pledges to strengthen the hospital’s ability to provide accessible and “entirely” free health services to the population at the State facility
“We will ensure minimal disruption so that patients can continue accessing medical services smoothly during the transition process. All services provided and supported by MSF will continue to be free of charge, even after the transition is completed,” James added.
“For the past nine years, MSF has been running secondary healthcare services in Bentiu camp for both internally displaced persons (IDPs) and the surrounding host population. These services include an emergency room (ER), surgery, maternity, neonatal, and pediatric care, and an adult inpatient department (IPD) with a current capacity of 135 beds. MSF has also responded to numerous outbreaks of diseases such as measles, hepatitis E, and malaria in Bentiu, as well as seasonal health crises and surges in patient needs throughout this period. In 2022, MSF handed over the nutritional, HIV/TB, and outpatient department (OPD) programs to capable partner organizations to focus more closely on these remaining critical services. In 2023, MSF teams in the facility conducted 45,987 emergency room consultations, treated 4,352 patients with malaria, and admitted 1,277 children into the inpatient therapeutic feeding center (ITFC). Additionally, MSF provided care for 712 expectant mothers, 1,193 surgical cases, 499 deliveries, 495 TB/HIV patients, and 1,504 measles cases,” part of the statement reads.
MSF staff treating a child as the child’s mother looks on at the newly rehabilitated pediatric unit at Bentiu State Hospital. (Photo Credit supplied).
MSF, in its next project, offers to construct maternity, surgical, and emergency rooms “until all the services are moved to Bentiu State Hospital, a process expected to be completed by the end of 2025”