A member of a Chinese medical aid team attends to a patient in South Sudan (XINHUA)

Machar Majok, 46, was born in Juba, the capital of South Sudan. For most of his life, he has seen his hometown torn by war and twice escaped to Kenya, seeking refugee status from the conflict at home. In the process, he lost his wife and two young daughters to the conflict.

"One of the major issues at the time was that many hospitals were destroyed by the long-lasting war that ended with the 2005 ceasefire. [Although] reconstruction [of infrastructure] began to take shape in 2010, there was again civil war in 2013 that ended in 2019 through another ceasefire. It is good [for the people that] China has decided to [help South Sudan] build new hospitals and reconstruct the existing ones," he said.

The hospital project was set in motion through an agreement between the South Sudanese Government and China Civil Engineering Construction Corp. (CCECC). The agreement was initially signed in 2010 and is still in place, but was stalled by the 2013 civil war.

"We have only completed about four of those hospitals. I have to admit that the civil war brought many challenges that we could not deal with. But that is now over. We are partnering with China through a contracted company and we hope to complete about 32 hospitals by early 2021, around February. Apart from constructing new hospitals, China is [also] helping upgrade the existing ones, such as the Juba Teaching Hospital, which was completed recently in less than two months," said Aggrey Tisa Sabuni, Presidential Advisor of Economic Affairs and Former Minister of Finance and Economic Planning of South Sudan.

According to Sabuni, CCECC's role is to supervise the hospital project, and the main people who will ensure that it is completed are from the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning of South Sudan and the Chinese Government.

South Sudan is the world's youngest country, becoming independent in 2011.

Doctors needed

Sabuni confirmed that a number of hospitals are currently being built in Juba, the provinces of Upper Nile and Jonglei, and five other regions that have been heavily affected by war. However according to the World Health Organization, the country has only 189 physicians, with a population of around 11 million. He admitted that there is a need for South Sudan to hire more doctors as the hospitals continue to be constructed.

"There is a shortage of trained and experienced doctors in this country. Some left when the most recent civil war broke out, to seek greener pastures in neighboring Kenya, Uganda and Ethiopia and in a number of Western nations. We may need to hire foreign doctors and improve the quality of training in our medical schools," said Sabuni.

A mental health center, which will be the country's largest one, will also be built and of the 32 hospitals, Sabuni confirmed that at least 18 are already under construction.

"We have already identified sites for the remainder of the hospitals to be built and purchased land for most of them. Reconstruction after years of political turmoil is not an easy job, but we are doing our best. Construction of most of the [other] facilities, I can confirm, will begin in January," he said.

Feasibility studies on the sites of the remaining facilities waiting to be built are already successfully completed. While Sabuni said he could not give an accurate cost of construction as building materials and labor prices fluctuate, he did confirm that the Chinese Government had previously provided a grant of $33 million to jumpstart the work.

Sabuni said a lot of the building materials and equipment have been imported from China and Chinese construction experts will also assist in the project. "We have complete confidence in China," he said.

The South Sudanese Government is also in talks with China to extend the road network where the new hospitals will be built so as to make services more accessible when the facilities are complete.

Chinese cooperation

On an inspection of the Juba Teaching Hospital earlier this year, Chinese Ambassador to South Sudan Hua Ning said that medical cooperation is an important component of China's friendly cooperation with South Sudan. The modernization and expansion of the Juba Teaching Hospital is a landmark project of the Chinese Government's cooperation with South Sudan, which will greatly improve the medical and health conditions in the country, bringing real benefit to local people. Hua said the rebuilt and expanded Juba Teaching Hospital is not only conducive to healing the physical wounds of the people in the country, but also the psychological wounds caused by years of war and conflict.

He added that China will continue to provide comprehensive support to the development of healthcare in South Sudan.

Sources from the Chinese Embassy in South Sudan indicate that the China-aided project to resuscitate the Juba Teaching Hospital will mainly include the outpatient and emergency building, the obstetrics and gynecology building and dormitories for the visiting Chinese medical team. It was officially handed over to South Sudan in September 2019.

Along with building hospitals, cooperation in medical training is also taking place. According to Xinhua News Agency, a visiting delegation from China's Anhui Province signed cooperation agreements in November 2019 with South Sudan's Ministry of Health and a local university to enhance knowledge sharing, capacity building and exchange programs. Shan Xiangqian, Party Chief of Anhui Provincial Health Commission, said new cooperation agreements would enable the Chinese doctors working in South Sudan to continue providing free medical care and capacity building services.

The Chinese delegation also signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) for capacity building and knowledge sharing agreement with the University of Upper Nile in South Sudan.

"The objective of this MoU is to train doctors and the Chinese will also benefit from this process as they will be able to treat some diseases which are not [found] in China," said Marial Awou Yol, Vice Chancellor of Upper Nile University.

According to the World Bank, South Sudan is one of the poorest countries in the world with less than 10,000 km of roads, and most of its villages have no electricity or tap water. But analysts say that with continued peace, the economy could be one of Africa's success stories.

"Civil wars have been a major factor behind the country's failure, but the brief peace between 2011 and 2013 saw great development. South Sudan can be another success story like Rwanda. Chinese investments will help a great deal just like other parts of Africa. The only problem is that reconstructing any country after war is not easy," said Makumi Mwagiru, an international relations expert from the University of Nairobi.

(Reporting from South Sudan)

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