Chinese peacekeeping medical team promotes refugee medical assistance in S. Sudan

Source
China Military Online
Editor
Huang Panyue
Time
2018-04-20 17:41:45

WAU, South Sudan, April 20 (ChinaMil) -- The 8th Chinese peacekeeping medical detachment to South Sudan (Wau) has been engaged in consultations in the past few days with the Sector West Headquarters of the United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS), the UNMISS department in charge of relief, rehabilitation and relocation affairs and the World Health Organization (WHO) on medical assistance in the Protection of Civilians’ (PoC) sites within UNMISS bases.

With the active promotion of the detachment, a medical assistance mechanism has been set up and a standard medical rescue and treatment process has also been formed for internal displaced peoples (IDPs) in S. Sudan.

There are more than 30,000 IDPs living in the PoC sites outside the UNMISS base in Wau. Due to the poor local medical conditions, the medical assistance to IDPs has always been a headache for the UNMISS and the local government.

According to the Medical Support Manual for United Nations Peacekeeping Operations, the peacekeeping medical detachment can only provide emergency humanitarian medical assistance to refugees, which is the last choice when other medical institutions are not available.

However, in providing emergency medical assistance to IDPs, the Chinese peacekeeping medical detachment found multiple problems such as lack of management coordination, unclear responsibilities, unreasonable channels for referral and so forth.

Leaders of the detachment have called on for times the Headquarters of the Sector West of the UNMISS, the UNMISS department in charge of relief, rehabilitation and relocation affairs and the WHO agency in Wau, proposing to convene a meeting on that issue. As a result of joint efforts, a standard IDPs medical assistance mechanism featuring level-to-level treatment from clinics to local hospitals to UNMISS peacekeeping detachments has taken shape.

 

Related News

back