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KUAJOK, South Sudan — After 48 hours of agonizing labor pains, Nyibol Garang’s family still refused to bring her to the hospital.
So the 23-year-old woman set off by herself — mid-labor — to walk four hours to the only major hospital in the state of Warrap in South Sudan.
The hospital is a small cluster of one-story buildings in the state capital of Kuajok, crammed with rickety beds and mattresses lining the floors. It treats more than 100 patients a day from all over the state, which has a population of nearly 1 million people.
When Garang arrived at the hospital on a Friday in late May, doctors told her she would need to have a cesarean section or her baby would not survive. Garang said she couldn’t have an operation without her husband’s permission. But when her husband finally joined her at the hospital the next morning, he refused.
In this conservative, rural society, women have little say over their own bodies, and many people are fearful and suspicious of modern medicine. “If you decide to stay at the hospital, whether you live or die, you can never return home,” Garang’s husband told her.
Garang — at this point three days into her labor — acquiesced and began the walk home. A nurse from the hospital came running down the road after her. She appealed to Garang to choose her life, and her child’s life, over her husband’s wishes.
“I agreed, because I don’t want to die,” Garang told The WorldPost, as she recovered in Kuajok’s maternity ward a day after the operation. “And if I have to die, I’d prefer it to be at the hands of the doctors rather than lying at home.”
