“Stop, that’s enough”: no longer tolerating incitement to irresponsibility in health systems

Published on : 04/06/2022 – 12:56

On May 25, a new tragedy occurred in a health structure in Senegal. 11 babies died in a fire in the neonatology department of Tivaouane hospital. On the same day, you moderated a new virtual WATHI roundtable on health systems in West Africa.

This new hospital drama in Senegal took place just hours following our online conversation on the need to institutionalize public debate on health systems in West African countries. This was the 5th time in a series of virtual meetings that we have been organizing since last year on health systems.

During the exchanges, there was much talk of a lack of trust between the populations and the health personnel. A point on which Dr. Allama Elmehdi, a young general practitioner living in Mauritania, insisted in particular. She testified to the fact that the patients clearly said that they came to see the doctor “in spite of themselves”, because they did not have the means to go abroad for treatment.

Lack of confidence in health personnel, lack of confidence in hospital structures. This is a reality shared by most countries in the region, even in a country like Senegal which has a solid reputation for training doctors from many African countries.

But the political reaction at the highest level following this tragedy is a rather good sign, you say.

Yes, President Macky Sall hastily returned from Malabo where the African Union summit was being held, of which he is current president. He dismissed the Minister of Health, immediately went to Tivaouane and the Council of Ministers that followed made a large part of the announcements of strong measures concerning the health system. He asked his new Minister of Health to initiate the generalization of quality management processes in health structures. He also announced the establishment at the presidency of a strategic committee to monitor reforms and the process of transformation of the health system.

These are political gestures that indicate an encouraging development in the perception by the political authorities of the risk of not reacting vigorously.

The urgency and the priority is to re-establish trust between populations and national health systems, and this does not only mean building and equipping new hospitals, you say.

In effect. In Senegal as everywhere else in the region, where the absence of spectacular tragedies hides the silent avoidable deaths due to the failures of health systems, the real answer lies in surgically attacking the most obvious deficiencies.

What makes the difference between a system that produces quality care and benevolence and a system that causes drama, suffering and spite, is training, professional conscience and work ethic of all those who are part of the chain. Whether it’s those who lay electrical cables in public buildings, those who maintain devices, those responsible for enforcing safety procedures, respecting and enforcing attendance schedules.

Of course, we must insist once more and once more on the need to finance more health. But today we can decide to no longer tolerate the lack of seriousness, the incitement to mediocrity and irresponsibility, the culture of carelessness and approximation, the constant search for a small profit to make on equipment purchases or on the selection of a service provider.

Doctor Moumouni Kinda, Director General of the NGO ALIMA and Doctor Mohamed Lamine Ly, retired public health specialist, who were our two other guests, converged on the need for people to say “stop, that’s enough” .

The virtual round table can be found on the YouTube channel

WATHI’s petition always online: For more efficient health systems in West Africa!