Lhe tragedy in Tivaoune (west), caused by a short circuit according to initial information, is the latest to highlight the shortcomings of the health system in this poor country. It has prompted promises of modernization and investigations from the authorities, and calls for resignation from public opinion and the opposition.
President Macky Sall has declared three days of national mourning starting this Thursday.
“God made the best decision”
In front of the Mame Abdou Aziz Sy Dabakh hospital, a mother barely standing up calls out to a man whom she expects to tell her where her son Mohamed is, hospitalized there 10 days ago because he had “bodily ache” according to his father. “God made the best decision”replied the individual, immediately taken over by the father, Alioune Diouf, a 54-year-old driver. “You weren’t supposed to tell him that way”reprimands Alioune Diouf, while his wife collapses.
Mohamed, baptized on Monday, was the couple’s second child. His mother went back and forth between the house and the hospital to breastfeed him. His father had come on Wednesday to bring his medicine. “Beds seemed ok to me”, he recalls. He was alerted by the media.
The level of surveillance of this establishment of relatively modest size and means remains obscure. The newborns were gathered in the neonatal unit, perhaps in the same room, 11 or more according to the sources. Testimonies cited by the press report flames spreading rapidly around 9 p.m. (local and GMT) on the floor of a building and explosions of cylinders discouraging intervention.
popular anger
The fire was caused by “a short circuit, and the fire spread very quickly”, said Mayor Demba Diop. Witnesses as well as the mayor indicated that a number of babies had been saved from the flames. But eleven did not survive according to the authorities.
The president, traveling abroad, tweeted his “pain and (his) dismay”and dispatched his Minister of the Interior Antoine Diome.
I have just learned with pain and consternation of the death of 11 newborn babies in the fire that occurred in the neonatology department of the Mame Abdou Aziz Sy Dabakh hospital in Tivaouane.
To their mothers and their families, I express my deepest sympathy.— Macky Sall (@Macky_Sall) May 25, 2022
“The president has instructed us to open an investigation. He asked us to take stock of the equipment needs for the services caring for newborns here in Tivaouane and in all the hospitals in the country”said Diome.
But anger rumbled outside the hospital in a small group of anonymous women. “It’s negligence. Leaving children with no one to watch them and saying ‘God willed it’… A mother takes the precaution of entrusting her child to someone, even when she goes to the bathroom”vituperated one of them, while a man of regarding fifty invoked “divine will”.
Tivaouane, regarding 40,000 inhabitants, is the stronghold of the Tidianes, one of the important Muslim brotherhoods which play an essential social role in Senegal.
“The drama was predictable”
The Caliph of the Tidianes, Serigne Babacar Sy Mansour, lamented the state of the hospital several months ago. The drama “was predictable as the level of dilapidation had exceeded understanding”, wrote his nephew Serigne Cheikh Tidiane Sy Al Amine in a forum. He denounced the broken promises of raising the medical plateau while the hospital, according to him, serves hundreds of thousands of people.
“I hope this time the sanctions will hit the top of an overall failing system”
Abdoul Mbaye, former Prime Minister
These are grievances often heard in recent months following a series of tragic events. Four newborns had died in 2021 in a fire in a maternity hospital in Linguère (north).
Le 1is April, Astou Sokhna, a woman in her thirties, nine months pregnant, died at the public hospital in Louga (north) following having, according to her relatives, waited in vain in very great suffering and for regarding twenty hours the caesarean she was asking for.
“I hope this time the sanctions will hit the top of an overall failing system”tweeted former Prime Minister Abdoul Mbaye.
It is with horror and great pain that I learned of the death of eleven newborns at the hospital in Tivaouane. Let us pray for these innocent people who have disappeared. My deepest condolences to the bereaved parents.
— Abdoul MBAYE (@AbdoulMBAYE2019) May 26, 2022
“More burnt babies in a public hospital. This is unacceptable Macky Sall”tweeted an opposition deputy, Mamadou Lamine Diallo.
World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said he had “more than broken heart”.
Beyond heartbroken with this tragic news. I’m sending my deepest condolences to the parents and families of the babies who lost their lives. https://t.co/f62rp97eC2
— Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus (@DrTedros) May 26, 2022
