31/08/2025
OPINION| The Brutal Truth About Juba Teaching Hospital
By: Dr. Khon Ajang Akol
Dear readers,
Allow me to address the ongoing debate about Juba Teaching Hospital (JTH).
The topic has become a trending conversation, but most of what is being said is filled with emotional judgments, shallow observations, and misplaced anger. The truth is more complex, and it deserves to be told without fear or sugarcoating.
1. Pregnancy Risks and Maternal Deaths
Yes, maternal deaths in Juba Teaching Hospital are a serious problem. But let us correct the lies circulating.
The claim that “interns are performing C-sections and killing mothers” is completely false. JTH is a teaching hospital, the national training ground for South Sudan’s future doctors. Interns (house officers) are always supervised by a licensed chief surgeon during operations. No intern is left alone to cut open a woman’s womb.
Deaths during C-sections or deliveries do occur, but the main causes are not incompetence, they are systemic failures:
• No blood for transfusion when mothers bleed heavily.
• Power outages that shut down lights and machines in the middle of operations.
• Lack of anesthesia drugs to manage pain and complications.
• Delays in referrals because ambulances have no fuel.
Let’s be brutally clear: women are not dying because doctors are careless, they are dying because the healthcare system is broken. This problem exists not just in JTH but across South Sudan, and globally, complications in surgery remain a risk even in the best hospitals. The difference is, in strong systems, resources are available to fight for life. In South Sudan, doctors are sent to war without weapons.
2. “It Is a Training Ground, Not a Reliable Hospital”
Yes, JTH is a teaching ground, but that does not make it useless. Every great hospital in Africa and the world is both a training ground and a referral center. Kenyatta Hospital in Kenya, Mulago in Uganda, and Chris Hani Baragwanath in South Africa all train medical students. Does that mean they cannot save lives? No.
The reason services in JTH sometimes fail is not because of students or interns, it is because the hospital has no support systems:
• Shortages of drugs and consumables.
• Non-functional equipment.
• Poor infrastructure and sanitation.
• An overstretched, underpaid workforce.
Blaming interns for system collapse is like blaming the candle when the entire power station has gone dark. The hospital fails not because it is a training ground, but because it has been abandoned by those responsible for funding and maintaining it.
3. ICU: The Intensive Care Unit of Little Hope
It is true, survival rates in the ICU are painfully low. Reports that 90% of patients admitted to JTH’s ICU die are not exaggerated. But again, the ICU itself is not the problem.
How can patients survive when:
• Power cuts turn off ventilators in the middle of the night?
• Oxygen supplies run out without replacement?
• Critical monitoring equipment is broken or absent?
• Backup generators lack fuel or maintenance?
The ICU at JTH is not failing because doctors don’t know what to do it is failing because the system does not provide the tools to keep patients alive. The Ministry of Health, not the hospital staff, should carry the blame.
Doctors and Interns:
The Forgotten Victims
Here is the savage irony: the very doctors and interns who are being blamed are themselves victims of neglect.
• They work in wards without gloves, sutures, or drugs begging patients’ families to buy them.
• They endure long shifts with no food, no water, and no pay for all.
• They collapse from exhaustion while being insulted as “selfish” or “incompetent.”
The public sees doctors as the problem, but the truth is that they are more marginalized than the patients they treat.
The 2023 Strike:
A Forgotten Warning
Let’s not forget: in 2023, junior doctors and interns went on strike. They were demanding exactly what people are complaining about today, drugs, equipment, oxygen, power, and better conditions for patients.
Instead of supporting them, many of the same voices now blaming doctors called them “greedy,” “selfish,” and “money-hungry.” Some even said doctors joined medicine for riches. The reality? Doctors risked everything for patients. Some of us were jailed for speaking out, branded as ringleaders, treated like criminals instead of lifesavers.
Where was the public then? Where were those now raising alarms? We were shouting, but nobody listened. Now, the system is collapsing on everyone’s heads.
The Brutal Truth
Juba Teaching Hospital is not failing because of doctors, interns, or students. It is failing because:
• The government has abandoned healthcare.
• The Ministry of Health is unaccountable.
• Hospitals are treated as political ornaments, not as life-saving institutions.
Until South Sudan invests in real health infrastructure, supplies, power, and fair treatment of its health workers, JTH will remain a place where both doctors and patients suffer and the cycle of blame will continue.
Final Word
Dear public, stop pointing fingers at the wrong people. Doctors are not the enemy. Interns are not the executioners. The real killers wear suits, sit in air-conditioned offices, and sign away health budgets that never reach the hospital gates.
The next time someone tells you JTH is unsafe because “students are operating,” correct them. Tell them the truth: patients are dying because the government has chosen bullets over beds, wars over wards, and politics over patients.
That is the brutal truth.
To be continued…
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not represent the official stance or position of Dalwuot Media. Any claims, assumptions, or interpretations made are the author's own and should not be attributed to the organization or its affiliates.
