‘Patients bring oxygen from other hospitals’: shortage in Port Sudan

A lack of oxygen in hospitals in Port Sudan has turned problematic for asthmatic patients. In White Nile state, patients with kidney problems carried out a protest against the disrupted dialysis operations.

Last week, a child in the hospital in Port Sudan died owing to a lack of oxygen, health affairs journalist Osman Hashim reported to Radio Dabanga. “The Port Sudan hospital asks the relatives of patients with asthma to bring oxygen from other hospitals.”

He also reported the stalling of cooling devices in Osman Digna Reference Hospital in Port Sudan. “This might lead to disruptions in the only magnetic resonance device in Red Sea state in the event that the hospital administration and the state Ministry of Health do not intervene.”

Kidney operations halted

On Wednesday, dozens of kidney failure patients carried out a protest in front of the centre for dialysis and kidney transplants in Kosti, White Nile state. The Abbas Ibrahim centre has halted dialysis operations because of the non-operation of its water purification station.

The acting director of the centre, Dr. Izzeldin Hussein, announced that the disruption will last longer than expected. “Our purification station, which supplies 20 dialysis machines, needs new filters that are rare on the market.”

He revealed that 289 kidney patients have come to the only kidney centre in the city. Currently 137 of them have been transferred to Khartoum to continue dialysis.