Hassan Hachem: Tunisia has the best network of doctors in AfricaTraditionally, France's partner countries around the Mediterranean and in Africa used to send their wealthiest nationals to seek treatment in France. Today, the situation is gradually changing as some countries acquire strong medical infrastructures. We heard about the quality of the Libyan health care system at the time of the fall of the Khaddafi regime. But we know less that Tunisia is mainly a center of medical competence. Coincidentally, the centers of medical expertise of these two countries have developed are the impetus of two dictators who have been overthrown. It has taken these two countries thirty years to reach an internationally recognized level of expertise, ultimately attracting even more European clients, so that we now talk about medical tourism, as sector of activity in its own right. In Tunisia, the most well-known form of medical tourism is cosmetic surgery. Who would have thought twenty years ago, that French women would entrust the correction of their nose or their chest to a Tunisian surgeon, also operating in Tunis. Probably, not many people. And yet the reality is there. I am French-Lebanese and great lover of Africa, I can tell you that Africa would be wrong to make inferiority complexes. Tunisia should serve as an example to other countries that must first learn to rely on their own strength in medical matters. Everyone knows that there is a serious deficit in medical expertise in Africa, but few people are betting on the fact that it can be filled in a single generation. And yet, if the political will is there, it is possible. An evocative example: do you know that the grandmother of the president of the most powerful country in the world went to seek treatment in Malabo, Equatorial Guinea? The health situation is all the more crucial in that, in addition to the usual pathologies of Africa (AIDS, yellow fever, malaria), another danger lurks in Africa: cancer, which has unfortunately been accelerating for some time now. However, the lack of specialist in oncology is cruelly felt in Europe, especially in Africa. This established fact reflects a dramatic situation. Without being a specialist in the field, I think that this problem can be solved in the medium term only through North-South cooperation, but also South-South cooperation because Europe, even if it had the will, could not clear resources to meet the challenge. " So, could Tunisia be at the forefront of this new South-South medical cooperation and export its doctors or be used as a platform for massive training of African doctors? This would be a good example that shows that South-South cooperation is not just a concept, but a real development strategy and that Africa can produce international fields in certain areas. Tunisia still needs to recover from the turbulence it is going through. Figures on medicine in Tunisia
Doctors per 1000 inhabitants in Africa
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