The NGO continues to note serious difficulties to work but recognizes improvement in care for the wounded in recent days
May 19. (EUROPE PRESS) –
Surgeons from Doctors Without Borders (MSF) have operated in just one week on 240 patients with injuries resulting from fighting between the Sudanese Army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in the capital of the African country, Khartoum.
All the patients presented “various types of trauma”, the majority due to “gunshot wounds or injuries caused by the explosions caused by the continuous air raids and bombings that are taking place in urban areas of the capital”, according to what the organization has made known. it’s a statement.
MSF once again regrets the serious difficulties that the country’s medical centers are experiencing to continue working, either due to material damage or lack of personnel, given that “many people have fled and those who have stayed have great difficulties moving safely around the city”.
Bashair University Hospital, in the south of Khartoum, was one such medical center that had to close completely for a while. “When our surgical team arrived south of Khartoum, we found a hospital where people are working their butts off and taking real risks,” MSF Emergency Coordinator Will Harper said.
Doctors and nurses, helped by a group of young people from the community, made the decision to try to get this hospital back on track after it closed and staff left for safety.
Right now, however, the open negotiations between the two sides in Saudi Arabia seem to have had a positive effect. “The situation is improving,” added MSF doctor Hisham Eid, an MSF doctor, “and we can treat many patients effectively.”
MSF is also seeing progress in post-operative care, infection control and all those issues that are challenging in any day-to-day hospital and are especially difficult when there are restrictions on water, electricity and medical supplies, according to Harper.
FOUR MAJOR INTERVENTIONS A DAY
Since the MSF team began working at the hospital on May 9, more than 240 surgeries have been performed, including about four major surgeries a day. Complex and critical cases represent a significant proportion of the total number of patients with urgent needs.
“We have treated multiple patients with gunshot and stab wounds who were very serious and would not have survived without surgery,” explains MSF surgeon Shahzid Majeed. “Many had injuries to the thorax, abdomen, liver, spleen, kidney and intestine. We have also performed vascular reconstructive surgery here, without which the patients would have died or lost limbs,” he added.
MSF and other organizations have been donating medical supplies to hospitals in Khartoum and other areas from stocks already in the country, but delays in getting supplies to Sudan and to areas where they are most needed – both logistical and administrative – represent a serious problem.
“Obtaining fuel to run the generators is one of the main concerns, since the electricity supply, in the best of cases, is intermittent. In others, it is simply non-existent,” laments the NGO.
“The conflict has no sign of ending at the moment, so more supplies and medical personnel need to reach the areas most in need to ensure that people who are suffering the effects of the violence or who have been injured have access to medical care that could save their lives”, the NGO stresses.
