- © 2007 Canadian Medical Association or its licensors
After more than 20 years, 3 countries and thousands of kilometres, Daniel Madit Thon Duop is on the verge of realizing his dream of returning to southern Sudan to practise medicine thanks to the intervention of a Canadian relief agency and Canadian doctors.
Duop is one of 15 Sudanese doctors, educated in Cuba, who took a skill upgrading program operated by the University of Calgary, Faculty of Medicine and Samaritan's Purse, an international Christian relief and evangelism organization with a long history of helping Sudan.
“I can't tell you how thankful we are to have had the opportunities in Canada,” Duop said in an interview from a hospital near Nairobi, Kenya where he is completing an internship. “We always knew one day we would go back to Sudan, now we are close to completing our mission.
Duop's early life was rife with war and displacement. He fled Sudan in 1984 in the midst of one of the longest civil wars in African history, and spent 2 years working in a noncombative role at the Sudan People's Liberation Army headquarters in northern Ethiopia.
In 1986, leaders in the Sudan People's Liberation Army developed a strategic alliance with Cuba and a deal was struck to relocate several hundred young Sudanese to Cuba to be educated. Duop said that while the education they received was first rate, there were few opportunities for the Sudanese students to practise medicine in Cuba. Beginning in the late 1990s, many applied for refugee status in Canada. However, once in Canada, they found they did not have the qualifications to practise medicine. Duop worked at a meat-packing plant.
When the Islamic government of Sudan signed a peace agreement with the Sudan People's Liberation Army in 2005, Duop said he focused on finding a way to return to Sudan and practise medicine. However, by that time he had been out of school for 8 years and didn't know how to make his dream a reality.
A chance meeting in May 2005 between Duop and John Clayton of Samaritan's Purse provided a spark of hope. Clayton was inspired, even though tracking down these Cuban-trained Sudanese doctors in Canada and then upgrading their skills seemed like an impossible task. “It was really by chance or divine providence that we got connected with all these guys in Calgary,” says Clayton.
And when he approached Dr. Rod Crutcher at the University of Calgary he found they shared a similar sense of astonishment at the difficult journey the doctors had already made.
Crutcher, an associate professor in the Faculty of Medicine, realized it was going to be very difficult to find the staff and the financial resources to bring these doctors up to standards so they could practise medicine.
Samaritan's Purse agreed to raise money to support 15 successful candidates, and the University of Calgary donated the facilities and the staff resources. Ultimately, more than 70 faculty would donate their time to train the Sudanese doctors.
“This is a very unique program,” says Crutcher. “But this was about doing the right thing, and looking at the world as a global community.”
In the end, Samaritan's Purse helped raise more than $2 million, including support from organizations like the US Agency for International Development. It was possible to retrain the doctors and get them installed in internships in Kenya in little more than a year. The doctors are expected to graduate from the last stage of their training and return to Sudan to practise medicine in October 2007.
Clayton says the doctors have agreed to sign 2-year return-of-service contracts with a number of hospitals in Southern Sudan. With only an estimated 30 doctors now practising in the region, the addition of 15 more medical professionals will have a huge impact, he says.
Duop expects many of the new doctors will remain in Sudan for the remainder of their professional careers. “We will practise medicine anywhere in Sudan as long as we can help our people.”