Medical professionals in Sudan toil to keep health care system from collapsing

Transcript

JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:

In just over two weeks, health care in Sudan is at the point of collapse. In the capital, Khartoum, fighting between the two warring military factions has shattered an already fragile medical system. Now, Sudanese medical professionals are desperately working to fill the massive gaps, as NPR's Emmanuel Akinwotu reports.

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: (Non-English language spoken).

EMMANUEL AKINWOTU, BYLINE: Just a few weeks ago in Sudan, hospitals were a refuge. Now, they've become targets. This is the sound of dialysis patients being evacuated from a medical center in Khartoum. Patients are rushed out on trolleys or stumble out into the street, holding drips, as gunfire crackles in the background.

(SOUNDBITE OF GUNFIRE)

HADIL MOHAMMED: We suddenly heard the gunshots and explosions, followed by screaming, babies crying, people running.

AKINWOTU: These are the stories of doctors like Hadeel Mohammed on the front line of medical services in Khartoum, the epicenter of this conflict. Mohammed worked at a pediatric ward.

MOHAMMED: We were scared to death with all the noise. Patients, injured, with gunshots and bleedings, were everywhere.

AKINWOTU: The fighting trapped her and her colleagues inside the hospital.

MOHAMMED: Me and my colleagues have spent days in a devastating situation, doing surgeries, extracting bullets from patients, and with time and the lack of supplies, eventually we lost most of the patients at the ICU.

AKINWOTU: Then, the hospital was hit. She said it was attacked by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, who are at war with Sudan's army. Eventually, it was forced to close.

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: (Non-English language spoken).

AKINWOTU: Desperate scenes like this are mirrored across Sudan. This scene is from a hospital waiting room in Khartoum. The floor is covered in blood, with doctors fighting a losing battle to meet the immense demands. The fighting has ripped through the city and other parts of Sudan. The RSF were meant to merge with Sudan's army as part of a transition to democracy, but now both are locked in a fight for power - a fight that is destroying the country. It has brought an already fragile health system to its knees.

ATTIYA ABDULLAH: We only have 25 hospitals in Khartoum and across the country working.

AKINWOTU: Dr. Attiya Abdullah is general secretary of the Sudan Doctors Union, and he has been coordinating with doctors across the country, watching as the number of functioning hospitals in Sudan rapidly diminish.

ABDULLAH: Now we are afraid of health system collapse. We are not able even to reach some hospital to operate them because we don't have the safe corridors.

AKINWOTU: Thousands of medical staff across the country are unable to get to the injured because the fighting is too intense. But despite the immense risks, many are still finding ways to help.

NADA FADUL: People are not trained to handle trauma, so we launched the training on Saturday. And honestly, I was not very optimistic. We did it on Telegram.

AKINWOTU: Dr. Nada Fadul is a Sudanese doctor based in the U.S. She manages ECHO in Sudan, a project working with the U.N. to establish networks of doctors and support them across the country. She was speaking to several doctors during the conflict, including Mohammed, who told her they needed help adapting their threadbare supplies to meet wider needs.

FADUL: We advertised the training, and, within 24 hours, there were 4,000 additional members who joined the group.

AKINWOTU: Mohammed was on the training. And a few days ago, she returned to Khartoum and is setting up a medical center in her neighborhood. Several other doctors are doing the same. And the help is vital, but it's not enough. Barely any international aid has entered the country since the conflict started. It has caused upset among doctors like Mohammed, who feel abandoned.

MOHAMMED: I've seen in the news a lot of the evacuations - planes and ships to evacuate people - and I wished for them to bring some of the needs with them, but that, unfortunately, didn't happen.

AKINWOTU: Emmanuel Akinwotu, NPR News, Lagos.

(SOUNDBITE OF RENAO SONG, "LIFELINE") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.