Mothers across Jonglei state are lacking maternity services due to high flooding in the town, Mary Achol Akech, midwife in Bro State Hospital told journalists on Thursday.
She explained that mothers are missing some teachings which they usually get in preparation for save delivery because of the floods, leading them to deliver in villages.
“We give health education to the community or awareness to the community on how the pregnant Mothers can benefit and all the communities have known the benefit of the hospital but now they are unable to reach the hospital because of the floods, some are now delivering in the villages due to flooding if they come here and you ask why are they at home they will say they have nothing to because all the areas are inaccessible from flood.
Achol disclosed that the maternity center is not enough for the mothers because it only has 52 beds and some mothers sleep on the floor.
“The space is not enough so what we have here we have fifty tow (52) and these 52 bed are not enough, others are now laying on the floor because of the large number we are receiving daily and the maternity can’t accommodate them all”.
She explained that malaria and water born diseases are the most sicknesses affecting Bor because all places are flooded.
World Health Organization or WHO state coordinator in Jonglei, Dr. George Wani
Worri stated that they have responded to over 400 alerts water borne diseases like cholera, and malaria during the floods.
“We have responded closed to four hundred (400) alerts, for COVID-19 alone the alerts have been almost three hundred (300), the other alerts that we have been putting a lot of efforts on are alerts to do with diseases that usually come out of the flood situation, those are water born diseases like cholera, and other vector born diseases like malaria that usually goes high during period of floods”.
Dr Wani explains that they are coordinating with partners and other organizations to make sure that all places are covered.
“One of the key aspects of what WHO does is ensuring that disease surveillance is conducted appropriately, we have met our team, the rapid this was a team that was put together and they were trained, it has 21 member, they are based at state level, but we had to train people from other counties to form part of the RRT the rapid responds team, essential what this team has been whenever there is an alert outside there they go and rescuer the situation”.
Bor hospital is the state hospital that registers more than 200 patients in a day due to the high population which is currently in Bor town because of floods which has devastated thousands of people across Jonglei State.