Tunisia: controversy over the state of the health system after the death of a baby due to lack of staff

The Tunisian health system has been singled out for several years, especially after many tragedies. Here, the entrance to the Wassila Bourguiba maternity hospital, in Tunis, on March 9, 2019 (illustration). © Fethi Belaid / AFP

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2 min

The death of the baby of a Tunisian woman who was unable to give birth due to a lack of medical staff in the northwestern city of Le Kef has caused a stir since May 1. Without finding a specialist in the hospitals of the region, the young woman was refused by a clinic, for lack of money for a deposit. She lost her baby and had to undergo a hysterectomy because bleeding began due to lack of care. The deputies of Le Kef alerted President Kaïs Saïed of this tragedy which testifies to the problems of the public health system in the country.

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With our correspondent in Tunis, Lilia Blaise

It is a case that, almost a week after the tragedy, continues to shake public opinion. Two warrants of committal were issued Friday, May 5: one against the supervisor of the regional hospital of Kef, where the young woman could not be admitted for lack of specialist, the other against the private clinic which refused her hospitalization.

A judicial investigation has been opened for criminal abstention, a crime that is punishable by five years' imprisonment. The Tunisian justice has doubled its efforts on this drama, by taking into custody nearly a dozen people the next day.

This fatal neglect reveals above all the deterioration of the health system in Tunisia, a recurring problem in several regions of the country, where hospitals suffer from a lack of specialists and the medical desert. Last year, in the same region, a woman gave birth alone in the hospital toilet due to lack of medical attention. In 2015, several women died during childbirth in southern Tunisia due to a lack of obstetricians.

Gynaecologists are also less and less present in regional hospitals. Since the 2011 revolution, the flight of doctors abroad has been on the rise: in the last five years, 3,300 skills have emigrated for better working conditions.

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Read on on the same topics:

• Tunisia
• Health and medicine
• Social issues
• Wives
• Rights of the child