Northern Bahr el Ghazal cabinet appoints 17 health workers
July 31, 2013 (JUBA) – The government of South Sudan’s border state of Northern Bahr el Ghazal has appointed 17 skilled health workers raising hopes of improvement in the delivery of health services in the state.
The appointment of the health workers was made on 25 July by the new health minister Deng Tong Anei.
“I am delighted to share with you that the State ministry of Health Northern Bahr El Ghazal has presented the long awaited appointment of directors and few deputies to council of ministries on Thursday July 25, 2013 and it was endorsed,’’ said Deng Tong Anei in a statement sent to the Sudan Tribune.
The new health officials who have waited for years for the appointed to be effected had previously served as paramedics during South Sudan’s independence war.
Minister Anei attributed the delay in their appointment to difficulties in following recruitment procedures by the state administration to meet the policy of the central ministry of health.
Gunshot injuries and other medical care require specialists’ attentions but the state administration since 2005 was unable to follow proper recruitment procedures in hiring people with appropriate knowledge and skills to conduct such work.
Many of the skilled health officials in the state prefer to work for the better paying international Non Governmental Organisations (NGOs) or with the central government in Juba.
Paulino Kuol Akok, one of the new officials and who has been appointed Director for preventive medicine at the ministry of health, commended the new minister of health for the appointment and expressed willingness to serve the people to the best of his ability.
“Tong Deng has done is part”, Akok told Sudan Tribune from Aweil, the capital of the state.
“It is now us who have been appointed to prove that we can deliver but I think we will do our best because this is what we have been during all this time. What was lacking was the motivation”, Akok added.
A health official in the state told Sudan Tribune the recent appointment of people with expertise would now encourage professional skills to seek employment in the state again.
“You see the problem is not lack of qualified people. We have people who can work to the best of their abilities to improve current health condition. The problem is the political will to appoint these people,’’ said the official.
Located at the extreme North West of the world’s newest nation, Northern Bahr El Ghazal is one of the areas which shares direct borders with neigbouring Sudan from which it seceded in 2011, following the conduct of referendum as part of the implementation of the 2005 peace deal which ended decades of conflict.
(ST)