Our Emergency Field Hospital in Gedaref, Sudan, is providing critical care to pregnant mothers and their children fleeing violence.
Wrapped head to toe in a loose, floral fabric, Amira takes the hospital bucket from beside her cot and steps outside the pediatric ward to do some washing. The ward is one of eight tents that make up the Samaritan’s Purse Emergency Field Hospital, which has been operating since Christmas Day beside the government hospital here in Gedaref, Sudan.
Some mothers, after giving birth at local hospitals, rush their new children to our hospital due to malnourishment and other complications.
Even in winter, Sudan is blazing hot at midday. The handful of newborn shirts, onesies, and cloths that Amira hangs on the chain-link fence surrounding the hospital grounds will dry in no time. Her babies, a girl and boy, are 42 days old, and they arrived at our field hospital 15 days ago. Their clothes—tiny on the fence—are huge on the twins, who each weigh about three pounds.
Outside the fence at the front of the hospital, hundreds of internally displaced women and children line up, even into the middle of the night, for the rare opportunity to be seen by a doctor at no charge.
Many mothers and children come to our field hospital in Gedaref, a city in Sudan that has doubled in size with the influx of displaced families.
Providing Compassionate Care in Jesus’ Name
An estimated 3 million people have come to live in Gedaref—suddenly doubling the city’s population. The local hospital is overwhelmed, and referring patients to Samaritan’s Purse helps ease the burden.
Since opening on December 25, our field hospital has helped with scores of safe, natural births. We have also performed dozens of deliveries by cesarean section, in addition to providing prenatal and postnatal care.
Though Amira was referred to Samaritan’s Purse by the government hospital after giving birth, she said she was most influenced by positive recommendations from her friends and neighbors.
Special baby formula helps babies grow strong until they can feed exclusively on their mother’s milk.
“This hospital is well-known by people who came before, and what I heard from people is really what I experienced,” Amira said. “People are welcoming me with love, and they are taking care of my babies, and they even provide them with milk. My aim is only to see my babies grow.”
Samaritan’s Purse medical staff are working hard toward that same goal, carefully monitoring the twins and feeding them special formula until they are strong enough to breastfeed exclusively. Amira cannot stay with her babies most of the day because she has six other children at home, but she said she feels safe leaving them with Samaritan’s Purse staff.
“The doctors are very kind to my children,” Amira said. “This is the first time I have seen people love and care for babies like they do.”
Safety is always a concern in Sudan in recent years as rival groups fight for control of the country. Stories of violence against women continue to flow out of conflict areas as residents flee. In some cases, families searching for safety and stability are separated in the process.
Amira was first displaced 13 months ago when she fled her hometown in Sennar state with her husband and children, leaving her mother behind. As an only-daughter, Amira said she hopes she will be able to visit her mother again to show her the new babies.
Amira clothes one of the twins in freshly washed garments.
“Motherhood is a gift,” said Amira. “I’m praying that I will see my own daughters married and become mothers.”
When her new home in Jazirah state became dangerous, Amira fled a second time. Her husband was already living in Gedaref for a job opportunity, and she had to make the journey alone.
“It was a really risky trip,” said Amira. “I was afraid for my daughter. We are very thankful that we are now here.”
As Amira watches her two children improve at our hospital, there’s joy in her face and voice, but tinged with grief. Her journey was not without one terrible loss.
Making a Difference
Time seems to slow in the hottest part of the afternoon. Cries of pain from the labor and delivery ward fill the air as the women inside grip the frames of their metal cots during contractions. When it’s time to push, the mothers are guided to privacy in a delivery chair behind a vinyl partition.
Mothers are amazed at the love our medical staff demonstrate toward them and their children.
Fans circulate hot air around the room as their accompanying caregivers, usually a helpful female relative, listen for the newborn’s cries. The voices of loved ones undulate with sounds of celebration as these new lives are brought into the world and placed in the arms of their mothers.
The hard work of our medical teams is lightening the burden caused by the crisis that’s plagued the region for nearly two years now.
“They are making a difference in this country with this conflict,” said Harith Mohammed Ali, a Sudanese pediatrician born and raised in Gedaref who is working alongside Samaritan’s Purse staff at the hospital. “They are helping a lot of people—thousands, I think, which cannot reach any medical advice here because of crowdedness.”
Dr. Harith Mohammed Ali says he can see the impact of our work on his hometown and on the displaced people of Gadaref.
These conditions may seem hard by Western standards, but at the local hospital, mothers are sometimes placed three to a cot to make room for the overwhelming needs. When patients come to the Samaritan’s Purse field hospital, our staff ensure they receive compassionate care that demonstrates God’s love for every individual.
“The field hospital was very good,” said Samar Algali, who just gave birth to her third child and first girl. “We found all the staff have treated us perfectly, and we are very glad.”
Samar cuddles with her newborn, her third child, grateful for the special care provided by our team.
“The field hospital really has a good team,” said Malik Awadelah, a first-time mom brimming with joy. “They’re always caring about the patient and providing high-quality service…. the medical staff, the physicians, and all the people are treating the people nicely.”
As national staff and our teams work together, they are learning from one another. Dr. Ali said bedside manner is one difference that he’s observed among the Samaritan’s Purse doctors and nurses.
“We get a lot of experience, a lot of skills from them,” said Dr. Ali. “We see how they deal with the patient. Honestly, we deal very aggressively with the patient— not like people in the United States.”
Loving Those in Need
When night falls, the air cools to a comfortable degree, and local staff working 24-hour shifts grab a cot to get some shut eye between patient checks. The cooler temperatures are a relief for adults.
Non-medical team members are essential to quality care as they put specialized skills and talents to work from constructing the field hospital to improvising lifesaving incubators and other equipment to care for patients.
Amira’s twins, though, babies without any body fat, can get dangerously cold. This is why we deploy more than just doctors and nurses to our field hospitals. God is using medical technologists; engineers; and water, sanitation, and hygiene specialists to make the operation run smoothly. These become lifesaving skills in the field.
Ken Punter helped set up the emergency field hospital upon arrival. He established bathrooms and handwashing stations, and he ensures clean drinking water is always accessible. When he learned that keeping the twins warm overnight was a concern, Punter got creative and built an incubator powered by a blow-dryer.
“It seemed to work really well,” said Punter. “The twins were snuggled in there, and we put a little plexiglass window in the front. It’s not the best one, it’s cloudy, but that’s all we had.”
After Punter describes the mechanics of designing a safe and effective incubator with limited supplies, he has to pause before he can continue.
“You know, it was triplets she lost,” he said, beginning Amira’s longer, heartbreaking story of how she got here.
She had given birth to three babies at another local hospital. Amira’s third baby had trouble breathing. Lifesaving measures were performed but the newborn child passed away.
Though she grieves the loss of a child, Amira is grateful to God and to our team that the two surviving twins are thriving after care at our hospital.
Amira is grief stricken even as she watches the other two improve at our field hospital. She can’t help but think of how different it would be if she’d been able to come to our hospital earlier, when she was in labor.
“If there was the same care that my children are receiving here, maybe my child would not pass away,” she said.
The bullets, bombs, and other violence of the conflict in Sudan are not the only causes of the war’s casualties. And Amira’s story is not uncommon. We praise God that her journey brought her here, to the field hospital, and that her story is now infused with hope and with love from God’s people.
“You’ve treated me so nicely,” said Amira. “I feel as if I’m with relatives.”
