The South Sudan experience ...

Mapel, the shortfall of health services and the position of women 

I travelled to Mapel to work on my research, where I visited the local health facility. While waiting for members of a committee (who never came ...) I decided to conduct some interviews with the people who were waiting to get treatment. Doing this kind of research always holds the risk of not reaching to the most marginalized people, and finding people in a clinic which is a centre to many rural villages was a great opportunity to talk to those people. Moreover, on that day I had a female translator, which allows me to talk to women more freely, as often they don’t feel comfortable to share their real thoughts in front of a man.

I know of course that in this particular culture women marry young, man have multiple wives, and generally women are viewed as lesser to man and their ability to influence and stand up for themselves is little. I just didn’t know how little, and how it is so dominant in every aspect of their life. During the interviews with the women I realized that they are suppressed and extremely subdued, the women themselves don’t believe they are worth anything. The phrase ‘it is to my husband to decide’ kept repeating itself together with ‘I only have my role at the house’. Feminist me wanted shake those women and tell them that they matter, but when I started this research I decided that I will put my beliefs and way of life aside so I can learn about people’s life here without presumptions and judgment, so I kept quiet.

But I couldn’t let go when I saw the sick women with their children being ignored at the clinic. I saw the women waiting for hours without even being acknowledged.  Of course there are a lot of problems with health services in the country. The health facility is a simple building with poor equipment, there are no real doctors or nurses, but people who are called a ‘health worker’, which are people that in most cases didn’t even complete more than primary school and simply got a few month of training. In addition they are paid very little which affects their motivation to work.

But here is what shocked me the most, the women waiting did not say a word, none of them came up to ask when she would be seen, even when they saw the health worker just hanging there, blatantly ignoring them. In the end of my interview I asked the lady how long she is waiting and she said 6 hours. How could it be that she is sitting there for 6 hours and being ignored and don’t say anything? So I decided to speak for her, I found the health worker and brought him to her. I don’t think he was ever been ‘told off’ by a women, he was a bit angry but I didn’t care. I wanted to show her that women can also have a voice.

But it wasn’t over. In the end of the second interview the women told me the same thing, she waiting since morning. Her 9 year old daughter needed treatment, she had some sort of surgery on her leg and her bandages needed to be replaced. But the health workers were nowhere to be seen. I decided I can do it myself so I went in the clinic to get some bandages, got the first aid kit from the car and open her bandages. It was horrible. Her wound was badly infected. This girl needed antibiotics. My translator desperately tried to explain the parents that they can’t leave because the new bandages were not enough and she should get further treatment. Finally we found some health worker to inject her some antibiotics and the family left.

As for me, it is hard for me to understand why the health workers don’t treat their patients, why the women don’t stand up for themselves and why a society doesn’t seem to respect those who play such an important role in everyday life.