South Sudan: Why prohibiting the interns to practice in Juba Teaching Hospital?
5 min read“There comes a time when the nation is more important than an individual,” said former vice president of Kenya, Professor George Saitoti.
By Pal Chol Nyan, Juba, South Sudan
May 29, 2016 (SSB) —- In a surprise move and according to a well-placed source, the Health Authority circulated a strongly worded letter to all the Heads of Departments in Juba Teaching Hospital directing them, with threats of a carrot and stick policy in case of non-compliance, not to allow the interns to practice in Juba Teaching Hospital. To quote it verbatim, the letter reads” The house officers are not allowed to practice in Juba Teaching Hospital until further notice”. The house-officers or interns by definition are the fresh graduates from the medical school or college of Medicine who are therefore required by law to do a rotational training in the hospitals under the supervision of a senior medical officer or a consultant for a specified period of time to qualify them to become medical officers or competent medical practitioners.
When you graduate from the college of medicine, you have got to do, as an obligation, a clinical training for you to efficiently attain skills in the basics of medicine, paediatric, obstetrics/ gynaecology and surgery. After finishing all the shifts, in principle, you sit for exams and once you pass, you are thereafter registered as a qualified and a proficient medical officer or General Medical Practitioner (GP)/Clinician. Therefore, you can decide whether or not, you want to go and specialize after having acquired enough knowledge or experiences. You cannot be called a medical officer once you just graduate and have not gone through this channel.
In the process of rotations in the departments, each Head of unit is required to write a report about you that you have fulfilled all the tasks satisfactorily and can move to the next unit with a tick against each of the skill you had performed in your rotational report book. This is or may be news to those, the decision makers are not exception, who went to other branches of medicine and who do not need much of all that. However, it is yet a requirement to practice under a senior person even in those branches like Radiology, Pharmacology, Physiotherapy, dentistry and many more. All these need are normally done in a well-equipped Teaching Hospital with constant and uninterrupted supply of power.
It was only until the other day when, H.E, the President directed the Ministry of Finance and the Electricity to provide electricity to Juba Teaching Hospital. I keep my fingers crossed. The decision to prohibit the interns to practice in Juba Teaching Hospital is, I opine, an indirect move to close down the College of Medicine producing the graduates who become the House-officers, now being banned from acquiring knowledge. In other places, the decision is too serious to cost some one’s job where the laws are enforced without fear or favor.
If this decision is not revisited or looked upon with high degree of responsibility, the outpatient department where the patients are triaged may be dysfunctional. I do not know why should it beat and be a rocket science for the decision makers, who seem to have been inspired by the existing State of Emergency laws and immune to presidential decrees, that even if you are still a houseman or officer, you are entitled to something small to motivate you to do your clinical training diligently and with a keen interest.
Why is the electricity needed in the Hospital? The work in any Hospital is power dependent. The power is not very much needed for luxuries like ACs or light to connect desktops to play cards or fast-track the sorting out of the contracts and tenders which meet only the personal needs. The availability of power is what makes a hospital a good service provider facility. This power cut is attributed to the economic crisis known to all the people. What defies logic or odds is why should the wrath of the lack of fuel be poured on innocent House-officers or interns because somebody somewhere failed to solve his administrative problem?
It is upset to hear those hit hard by lack of services describing ironically the Hospital situation as horrible. Some dissenting voices even denounced the slaughter of the cow to welcome the big man to the hospital. They compared it only to a celebration in a funeral house because of the innocents dying due to the lack of power in the hospital except for the few who divided the meat to cover the hunger gap for the day. I sincerely thank and congratulate H.E, the President for responding faster in this regard to direct the concerned authority to ensure that the Hospital has electricity.
The authoritative and discretionary decision solely taken by the Health Authority not to allow the interns to practice in the Teaching Hospital will have a serious impact on the provisions of medical services. I will live with time to prove me right that the volume of the work in the hospital will definitely overwhelm the medical officers and the Consultants. I therefore, urge and implore with the concerned authorities to relent and reconsider their positions on suspending the clinical training of the house-officers because they will need them on their way down.
The prime responsibility of these junior doctors, besides being trained, is to prepare patients for the senior doctors. There was never a moment where my opinions coincided with the most senior minister because we have nothing in common; only yesterday in Juba Monitor Issue of 27th Instant when he admitted that the health sector is ailing in the country and needs to be revamped.
I may be deemed wrong for putting my cent’s worth but my conscience tells me to say it. Let us put the future of our country first before ours and work foe prosperity and justice.
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