A protest movement will be organized this Thursday, April 17, 2025, in front of the headquarters of the Ministry of Health in Tunis. Doctors, dentists and pharmacists in the public sector will observe a sit-in to denounce the continuous degradation of their working conditions and the absence of the means necessary for a health service that respects professional standards.
This sit-in is organized jointly by the General Federation of Health, the union of doctors, pharmacists and hospital-university dentists, as well as the general union of public health with the aim of attracting the attention of the authorities to an increasingly deleterious climate in health establishments, aggravated by the lack of human and material resources.
Questioned by the TAP agency, Imed Khlifi, secretary general of the general union of doctors, pharmacists and dentists of public health, pointed out an alarming situation. He notably quoted the 2019 tragic affair, that of newborns who died at La Rabta hospital, as a crying symbol of system failures.
In this case, which deeply shocked public opinion, 14 premature infants lost their lives. Recently, the Correctional Chamber of the Tunis Court of Appeal sentenced three hospital executives to eight months in prison for each of the cases, which could represent more than ten years in prison in total. The convicts will also have to pay compensation of 30,000 dinars to each family concerned.
The accused – the director of the maternity and neonatology center, the maintenance director and the head of the pharmacy service – were not, according to Khlifi, tried in fair conditions. He claims that the court did not take into account the expertise report extinguishing the defendants and did not take into account the serious structural and logistical insufficiencies of the hospital.
“It is unfair to make individuals have the responsibility of a systemic failure,” said Khlifi, stressing that several doctors fear today to assume responsibilities in the face of a work environment deemed dangerous and unpredictable.
The union calls to set clear technical criteria to assess the quality of medical services, and requires an urgent increase in budgets allocated to health structures, in particular maternity and neonatology services. It also calls for a significant strengthening of medical and paramedics, in order to guarantee quality care and prevent such tragedies from reproducing.
