Algiers - Rabia Khureis
Head of Algerian National Union of Public Health Practitioners (NUPHP), Elias Morabit, said that Ministry of Health, Population and Hospital Reform in Algeria is required to provide radical reforms to the situation in the Algerian hospitals and abandon the delivery of superficial solutions that will not achieve the desired results and will complicate the matters.
Morabit added, in interview with Egypt Today, in a comment on the death of a 24-year-old pregnant with her fetus after three governmental hospitals refused to receive her, that workers of Ain and Sara hospitals, in Djelfa province, had complained earlier about their catastrophic circumstances in their hospitals and have already contacted the concerned authorities but to no avail. He noted that this situation is not limited to these hospitals, but most hospitals in the country suffer from the same situation.
For the recent instructions taken by the Algerian Ministry of Health, on the obligation of specialists in the country to ensure their continuous existing in public hospitals during the night time, Dr. Morabit said that the decision taken by the ministry will not change the matter, it will not provide solutions to the current problems in health sector, and the ministry will not be able to censor this sector.
Dr. Morabit that what happened in Medea, Blida and Djelfa hospitals can be repeated in all hospitals in Algeria, which suffer from a severe shortage of labor and also in the physical capacity, especially equipment, noting that the various hospitals receive daily hundreds of patients at a time of lack of doctors. He added that these hospitals became unable to absorb the large number of patients who arrive daily.
He stressed the need to open a broad discussion with all social partners to review the map of health and the hospital reform program adopted in 2002, which caused the health sector in Algeria a significant loss.