Chinese medics lift heavy treatment burden on orphanage in South Sudan

Confident Children out of Conflict (CCC) orphanage in Juba on monthly basis often runs out of essential medicines to treat more than 200 children.

Ayam Joseph Kuenda, a 14- year- old orphan is among many children at CCC who would struggle to afford clinical examination and treatment for malaria if these services had not been made available by the tenth batch of the Chinese medical team.

Kuenda who has been staying at the orphanage since 2018 is grateful for the monthly visits by the Chinese medical team because of the free medical treatment offered to all children.

Malaria is one of the major killer diseases among infants in the youngest nation.

“Those people (Chinese) are good they brought us many things, snacks and medicines so that we can be treated,” Kuenda told The Juba Echo after the visit by the Chinese medical team on Saturday.

Adeke Lilian, a nurse at Confident Children out of Conflict, said that without the visits by the Chinese medical team they would be incurring huge expenses on monthly basis to treat these children.

“It is not easy, but with the help of the Chinese doctors we are able to manage because they bring us medicines, they do medical checkups and also we refer some of these sick children to them in Juba Teaching Hospital,” said Lilian.

“We often run out of medicine, but when they come and visit us we are able to get the medicine and treat the children,” she added.

Hellen Mushall Boro, executive director of CCC, said they also have children with chronic medical conditions like HIV/AIDS.

She said the malaria medicine and antibiotics provided by Chinese medical team ease expenses incurred on clinical examination and buying expensive tablets.

Boro noted that they spend most of their budget on health care.

Xu Zhanwei, team leader of Chinese medical team, promised to continue with the medical visits to the orphanage like the previous medical teams have done over the years.

“Children are the future of a country and not only in South Sudan, but in all countries including China, so we should give these orphans more care and love,” said Xu.

“We will continue to come to CCC every month to do medical checkups and offer treatment for these children,” Xu added.

The Chinese medical team also provided sports equipment to the children.

The United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF), South Sudan Humanitarian Fund and the United States embassy are among the supporters of the orphanage.

Xu leads his team of medical experts from Anhui Province that works alongside their South Sudanese counterparts to examine and treat patients in Juba Teaching Hospital the country’s largest teaching and referral hospital.

Since 2012, the Chinese Medical Team has offered free medical services in South Sudan and also helped with the capacity building of local health workers and medical students.