Fifteen Cuban-trained Sudanese
doctors are following a refresher course at the University
of Calgary so they can return to Sudan with the skills
to help their countrymen. Civil war, which has displaced
over four million citizens, has kept them away from
their homeland for over 20 years.
The six-month training program
is a joint effort between the university and the Christian
international relief organization Samaritan's Purse
Canada. "We're providing a clinical skills upgrading,"
says Dr Rodney Crutcher, director of the Sudanese Physician
Reintegration Program. The doctors — all Sudanese
refugees — are being taught techniques that will
be particularly useful for treating patients back home.
The diagnosis and treatment of infectious diseases such
as malaria, HIV and tuberculosis will be covered in
depth, as well as examination and interviewing techniques
and some minor surgery. The students will also get hands-on
training with doctors in Calgary clinics.
Dr Crutcher says the program, which
began in January, is going well. "They're enthusiastic
learners," he says. "They're glad to finally have the
opportunity to get some assessment and skills upgrading."
"We're learning a lot," says Dr
Daniel Madit Thon Duop, who's largely responsible for
the project taking shape. Last May, he approached Samaritan's
Purse to see what could be done about getting back to
Sudan. He says he doesn't have the words to thank the
people running the program. "They're enabling me to
go back with confidence so I can help my people."
Dr Thon Duop says his group's return
in June would greatly help the country's citizens.
"Right now, in South Sudan there
are only 50 doctors," he says. "If we don't go there,
who will do the job?"
DISPLACED
BY WAR
In 1983, Dr Thon Duop was forced to leave his home at
the age of 11 to escape Sudan's second civil war. His
mother had been killed two months earlier.
Dr Thon Duop fled east to Ethiopia
and three years later was one of 600 Sudanese children
sent to Cuba to be educated. He earned a medical degree
from the Higher Institute of Medical Sciences in Santiago,
Cuba, in 2000 but still couldn't go back to Sudan. "The
war was still going on," he explains.
That same year, Dr Thon Duop and
14 other refugees-cum-doctors moved to Canada.
"When we came to Canada we already
knew it was going to be difficult for us to practise
medicine," says Dr Thon Duop, who instead got a job
packaging meat in a factory. He didn't mind the work
because it meant he could send money to his family.
"Work dignifies a man, it doesn't matter what job you
do," he says.
After sticking it out in the factory
for four years, Dr Thon Duop joined up with Samaritan's
Purse, who agreed to finance the $500,000 re-training
project. About 75% of the budget has been raised so
far, mostly through private donations.
Dr Thon Duop says he and his colleagues
are committed to getting home and have no real interest
in staying here to practise. Though the war in Darfur
is still raging, the Naivasha treaty signed in January
2005 has established peace between the north and the
south. "Here's a group who actually wants to go back
and help their own people," says John Clayton, projects
director of Samaritan's Purse.
It's been hard on Dr Thon Duop
to be here in Canada while his father and extended family
are still in Sudan. "Hundreds of thousands of kids are
dying every day there from diseases we can cure, and
we're here," he says regretfully.
Dr Crutcher says it's possible
the program will eventually be expanded to help refugee
doctors from other countries as well. "It's a demonstration
program," he explains. "I think we need to see what
works and based on that we'll see how we can be involved
in other ways."
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