In Tunisia, the medical community is still in shock after the announcement of the death of one of their own in prison last week. While several doctors and pharmacists are currently in prison in Tunisia for similar accusations, the doctors’ order called a meeting this Wednesday, March 20 to raise awareness about the situation.
“ Why are we arresting doctors? Why are they kept in preventive detention? He does not represent a danger to society. » A man died, plunging an entire profession into shock, gathered this Wednesday. Accused of having issued so-called prescriptions of convenience and therefore of alleged drug trafficking, Dr Mohamed Hajji, psychiatrist, was placed in preventive detention. He died after just a few days behind bars.
Abusive or not, Dr Hajji’s prescriptions? Perhaps the courts will say so one day. In the meantime, he is no longer there to defend himself, to the great dismay of his colleagues, including Doctor Rym Ghachem, who says: “ We have a risky profession! Look, seven psychiatrists have been imprisoned this year! Seven! » Applause.
A dangerous precedent
What makes us angry,” she continues into our microphone, “is this context. This doctor is 63 years old and has worked for more than thirty years in a region where there are not many psychiatrists. He worked in quite difficult conditions; psychiatry currently attracts a lot of patients. We would have liked to avoid that.
In fragile health according to his colleagues, Dr Hajji died following pulmonary complications a few days after he arrived in prison.
A doctor who dies in prison is a very dangerous precedent,” insists Doctor Rym Ghachem. For example, in Kef, we have a psychiatrist who is in prison and there is no psychiatrist in Kef. Patients are forced to spend 140 dinars [around 41 euros, editor’s note] – which is roughly a third of the minimum wage – to come to Tunis to be treated and we do not want these conditions for our patients.
Faced with deteriorating conditions of practice, more than 1,300 doctors left Tunisia last year. That is more than the number of practitioners that the country trains annually.
