The 26-year-old doctor fell 5 meters into an elevator shaft after being on call for 24 hours. The medical profession denounces the “scandalous” state of the health system.
This is one death too many. A death which symbolizes the state of decrepitude of the Tunisian health system. Badreddine Aloui, a 26-year-old doctor, died after falling 5 meters into an elevator shaft at Jendouba hospital, in the northwest of the country, on Thursday (December 3rd). The practitioner who was finishing a twenty-four-hour call went to the emergency room from his surgical department to give an opinion to a colleague.
Since then, there has been great emotion in the country and the medical profession has grasped the symbolic significance of this accident. Ahlem Belhaj, secretary general of the Union of University Hospital Doctors, proposes with the Organization of Young Tunisian Doctors, a day of general strike for the entire sector and a march towards Parliament. “We can not let that pass”, denounces the child psychiatrist while many practitioners, present Friday in front of the Ministry of Health in Tunis, demanded the resignation of the minister.
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“This case is a scandal, I myself spent a year at Jendouba hospital in 2018, there is no intensive care anesthetist, the infrastructure is failing at all levels. I have already mentioned this in my Facebook posts. Today, he is a doctor, a friend who pays for the nonchalance of local decision-makers “, laments Marwen Yahyaoui, a young doctor of 29 years old and friend of Badreddine who had rubbed shoulders with the victim on the morning of the tragedy and shared the same surgical specialty. The poor condition of the hospital’s elevators had been denounced several times since 2016 by residents of the city.
The hundreds of young doctors gathered at the Faculty of Medicine of Tunis, Friday morning in tribute to their colleague, want the death of Badreddine to be an electric shock for the country. Many have changed their photo on the social network Facebook inserting a portrait of the deceased and brought to life in Arabic the unequivocal hashtag # hospital of death.
“Why has nothing been done? ”
“We are at the end of the line! We have been mobilizing for years, denouncing in vain. And there was this drama again. With the Covid-19 health crisis, we have redoubled our alerts on the state of our hospitals and our working conditions, why has nothing been done? “, Adds Zied Bouguerra, member of the Organization of Young Physicians. The collective was already behind the # Balancetonhôpital campaign after the scandal in 2019, which saw 15 infants die of a nosocomial infection in a premature ward in the La Rabta maternity hospital in Tunis.
During the second wave of Covid-19, photos of overwhelmed emergency departments or of patients with oxygen masks looking for a place in crowded rooms, have toured social media. And, according to practitioners, there have been no noticeable improvements.
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In Jendouba, where the Minister of Health paid a visit in early October and listened to the reproaches of medical staff over the lack of equipment and the condition of the premises, several promises had been made to improve infrastructure and strengthen equipment. “Today, Badreddine finds himself the symbol of the abandonment of Tunisian public health. Currently, Parliament is discussing the finance bill for 2021 and once again the health system will be the poor relation. There is no serious catching up, “Ahlem Belhaj warns. In fact, the 2021 budget will see an increase of 13.4% over 2020, but will still only represent 5.5% of the state budget.
An investigation was opened by the public prosecutor as well as an administrative investigation by the Ministry of Health, which presented in a statement its condolences to Badreddine’s family and his colleagues. His body will be buried in his hometown, Kasserine, in the presence of several ministers. The head of government, Hichem Mechichi, has decided on a national funeral.
