50 South Sudanese medics complete third Chinese language course

JUBA, Aug. 3 (Xinhua) -- At least 50 South Sudanese medical professionals on Thursday finished a three-month Chinese language course.

Anthony Lupai Simon, director-general of Juba Teaching Hospital, said learning the Chinese language will help South Sudanese medics to prescribe the right medicines donated annually by various China medical teams to patients.

Lupai said the language courses will help South Sudanese medics to operate with ease medical equipment provided to the main referral hospital by the Chinese government.

"This is now the third year that they want us to learn how to read and speak Chinese language. When we sit in the hospital, we have a number of items that come and they are written in Chinese. You get a drug but you will not know what drug it is because you don't read Chinese," Lupai said during the graduation ceremony held in Juba, the capital of South Sudan.

Xu Zhangwei, leader of the 10th batch of the China medical team, said they taught the medics Chinese culture such as Chinese characters, history, geography, cuisine styles, dance and many other things about China. "Chinese language courses aim to strengthen the people-to-people exchange between China and South Sudan."

"After finishing these courses, many people get a full view of China. And we also got more understanding of South Sudan from listeners during these activities," Xu added.

This year, the China medical team visited Paloch Friendship Hospital of Upper Nile State and Twic East County Hospital of Jonglei to provide free medical services. The team is set to leave the country in September when it will be replaced by the next group of Chinese doctors.

Ader Macar Aciek, the undersecretary in the Ministry of Health, praised the language courses undertaken by various China medical teams, which he said are proof of the strong cooperation and partnership between the two countries.

Macar called for closer cooperation in the upcoming Juba Teaching Hospital Phase II project. "We are looking forward to cooperating with you, and to having this partnership as one of the development partners to South Sudan."

The project, with a total site area of about 2.28 hectares and a total floor area of about 16,000 square meters, includes six functional divisions: specialist outpatient division, medical technology division, inpatient division, infectious disease division, administration division and logistics support division.

The Phase I project was completed and handed over to the government in 2019. Macar thanked the Chinese Embassy in South Sudan for contributing 20,000 U.S. dollars to repair the broken CT scanner machine in Juba Teaching Hospital.

Over the past 11 years, a total of 149 Chinese medical workers have come to South Sudan, who have treated 63,268 outpatients, performed 1,196 operations of various types, carried out gastroscopy examinations for 1,170 people, and conducted 19 free medical camps in outreach regions of the country.