CHAD: WHAT IS THE POINT OF THE PRESIDENT OF THE ORDER OF PHYSICIANS
Illustration ImageBy: Joe Le Mutant – Charilogone Editorial Team
After a lifetime of study and work, Chadian doctors deserve respect and a salary worthy of the nobility of their profession. Yet for the past three months, we have been witnessing, powerless, a true apocalypse in our hospitals: medical students on internship are being forced to take night shifts and treat patients, without this seeming to disturb the sleep of the Minister of Health, Dr. Abdelmadjid Abderahim, nor that of the President of the Order of Physicians, Dr. Mahamat Hissein Ali.
What is the point of appointing officials, distributing titles and positions, if they are unable to resolve the urgent problems undermining the medical profession? We will not name names, but we are convinced that blatant incompetence reigns within the Ministry of Health, including at the level of the Prime Minister, who seems to be concerned with everything except the health of our fellow citizens. What a shame.
When we look closely at the main issue behind this historic strike, we remain baffled — and at times even amused. The medical question is actually very simple to solve. The base salary of a general practitioner, after 7 to 8 years of training, is 150,000 FCFA. This salary, with a Bac +8 level, is almost equivalent to that of certain paramedical staff with Bac +4 or +5. With the same degree, some doctors in other sectors benefiting from a special status earn nearly double the basic salary. Meanwhile, the monthly pay of medical specialists, with Bac +12, is almost identical to that of a general practitioner.
All this information can be verified at the Payroll Department of the Ministry of Finance.
Taher Nguilin, the Minister of Health, and Mahamat Idriss Deby Itno do not seek medical care in Chad. If they visited the emergency rooms of our hospitals, they would see patients lying on the floor, soaked in their own blood and waste. As for the morgue workers, they cannot go on strike: the machine that produces corpses is running at full speed. Undertakers are doing business — not very profitable, admittedly — since the taxes imposed by dear Nguilin take their share, along with the head of funeral services. No exemptions on that side.
Clearly, the ministerial function has become deeply degraded in Chad, and despite this, many of our compatriots still dream of adding it to their curriculum vitae. Mahamat Idriss Deby Itno is not even aware of what is happening just a few steps from his palace. Long live the 5th Republic…
In conclusion, we continue to bury our dead — Nguilin’s dead.
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