After five days of intensive warfare, scores of hospitals in Sudan have been destroyed, leaving the healthcare system crippled and the humanitarian crisis worsening. Since violence broke out between the army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) on Saturday, reporter said on Thursday that over 50 health institutions in Khartoum and the surrounding regions had been forced to close. The Central Committee of Sudanese Physicians (CCSD) also provided a bleak assessment of the country’s healthcare system when they reported that 39 of 59 hospitals in Khartoum and the surrounding regions were closed.
On Wednesday, the Sudanese Ministry of Health reported that 16 hospitals had been destroyed by the violence that has prompted tens of thousands to seek refuge in neighboring countries. According to the Sudanese Doctor’s Union, up to 70% of hospitals in Khartoum and nearby states have been put “out of service” owing to the fighting, with no hospital in Khartoum able to provide full services. Nearly 300 people have been died, and another 3,000 have been wounded, according to the World Health Organisation, which also issued a warning that hospitals were running low on blood, transfusion equipment, intravenous fluids, and other crucial supplies. As intense artillery and shelling pound adjacent regions, medical personnel in hospitals must wade among unburied remains, seek cover from bullets coming in through windows, and attempt to do their jobs.
System failure is inevitable.
Conflict zones in Khartoum contain several of the city’s hospitals. A doctor working for Sudan’s health ministry, identified as Esraa Abou Shama, told the Reuters news agency, “The hospitals now serving the wounded are so few, with limited number of doctors, so there is overcrowding of wounded.” While some wounded may make it to safety, others may not. Hospitals, both governmental and private, are desperately needed to treat the many people who have been hurt. According to International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies head of mission for Sudan and Eritrea Farid Abdulkadir’s comments to media about the state of Sudan’s healthcare system before to the recent crisis are particularly telling. Abdulkadir claimed that the system was under ongoing strain as a result of the 2019 revolt that deposed President Omar al-Bashir and the subsequent COVID-19 epidemic.
“The healthcare system has taken a big blow” this week, he added. The system “will collapse,” he said, since employees are overworked and more dangerous. Fighting between the Sudanese army and the RSF resumed on Wednesday, despite a fourth truce that had been attempted and had the potential to allow the injured to get medical care and humanitarian groups to distribute aid to the civilian population. Each side has pointed the finger of blame at the other for breaking the ceasefire.
