The Moroccan Society of Emergency Medicine pleads for the increase of training dedicated to their specialty to improve the care of patients in health structures.
Did you know? Morocco currently has only twenty emergency doctors. That is 20 doctors less than Tunisia, which has a smaller population than its own. A deficit was pointed out during the fifth edition of the International Congress of the Moroccan Society of Emergency Medicine (SMMU) which was held on October 15 and 16, 2021 in Rabat.
A very critical situation, especially in the context of pandemics often marked by an increase in urgent cases. Morocco’s emergency medical assistance service (SAMU) revealed, in September 2020, difficulties in managing telephone traffic because it was overwhelmed by more than 8,000 calls per day against 1,500 daily phone calls before the pandemic. According to the experts of this scientific high mass, the increase of this human capital is urgent.
To do this, they recommend the creation of teaching and research units (UPR) in all medical faculties and emergency care teaching centers (CESU) in hospitals. Infrastructures will make it possible to improve the services in the emergency services which requires “a qualification of the nursing staff, by the opening of teaching positions, specialization and continuing professional training”.
They also recommend the reorganization of the management of emergencies and unscheduled care to rationalize procedures and deal with the significant increase in the number of emergency visits for care which is not always of an urgent nature. Dr. Azeddine Ibrahimi, director of the biotechnology laboratory at the Faculty of Medicine and Pharmacy in Rabat, was part of this panel of researchers. According to the member of the national scientific committee for vaccination, “efficient emergency medicine is more than ever an absolute priority”.
Hyper Specialized platforms
The training of qualified human resources is good. Providing them with one of the technical platforms identified is even better. Hence the importance of developing hyper-specialized technical platforms allowing rapid and maximized treatment of patients in critical situations, suggests the SMMU. She also wants university health structures to be organized as academics in centers of excellence because according to her, emergency medicine imposes a “race against time” to preserve lives.
In addition, the scientists of this learned society plead for the promotion of medical regulation and regional SAMUs in order to improve pre-hospital care and subsequently adapt the orientation of patients. They also propose the implementation of “organizational and media interpersonal communication strategies” in the different regions of the kingdom, to inform and positively influence individual and collective decisions “conducive to improving health”.
These health professionals insisted a lot on the promotion of emergency medicine in Morocco during this congress which, according to them, “will constitute the only driving force for the development of care in our emergency structures, whether in the management of critical situations or the organization of care networks, in accordance with the principles of the new Moroccan development model”.
