HEALTHCARE CRISIS

June 4, 2009

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Opposition coalition accuses the Government

Due to the ongoing dramas taking place in Benin healthcare system, the several and repeated strikes in the healthcare sector resulting in the death of children and pregnant women, the Opposition coalition of G4, G13 and Force Clé voices its indignation. The Opposition leaders accuse President Boni Yayi’s Government of what they see as indifference on its part. Here is the joined statement that they released on Monday, May 25, 2009:

Health centers, at district level, at commune level, at the level of the sanitary areas, in fact have been no longer working. In the best case, one meet Monday and Friday, some health workers frustrated and deluded. The people, confused, are now forced to turn either to self-medication or to private healthcare centers, of which most of the best are poorly supervised, with neither the staff nor the appropriate equipment. In public health, dramas are being played daily, with losses of human lives, including children and pregnant women.

This long paralysis almost incomprehensible of the health system in our country is due, according to the workers and leaders of different labor unions to:

– A lack of medical equipment;

– A lack of staff in all medical professions;

– Disparities or inequities in payments of a number of financial gains owed to workers (bonuses, allowances …)

– Promises or unfulfilled commitments regarding professional reclassification or transfer of a number of workers in the health sector, poor management of human resources.

The FCBE/UMPP State, its government and its head, up to day, have not felt the need to give any explanation or even any attention to the cries of distress of the population and health personnel. President Yayi Boni and his government so love the people that they leave them dying in silence. Those who are alive are struggling in this situation of acute social crisis and insecurity. They are drenched with the immoral shuttle of official vehicles and bustle of the “presidential visits” punctuated with meetings of propaganda, and “ministerial visits” including the visit of the Minister of Health in “search of arable land” and “young people to recruit into agriculture “, and “explanations tours” of ministers, of heads of central public administration, culminating in marches of support, religious cults of support and even adulation and praise to the glory of the President of the Republic. Some media organizations, especially the State media, lack neither the zeal, nor the ingenuity to fill our ears, our eyes, and our minds. In addition, in the silence, children, pregnant women, poor people have been dying before the closed door of the care and delivery room.

Faced with this situation, political organizations united in the Union makes the Nation (G4, G13 and Force Clé).

– Express their sincere sympathy with the Beninese people of urban and rural areas for the human, moral and material dramas they have been undergoing because of the almost complete paralysis of the health system in our country;

– Strongly denounce the indifference displayed by the Government and its head and diversionary maneuvers organized to hide the real suffering of our people and divert attention, including attention of foreign public opinion, to images falsely idyllic regarding the country’s situation

– Require that the Government start without delay, direct, frank and open dialogue with employees about the problems they pointed out, that it resolve them diligently, instead of running away from the real problems and engaging in an illegal and morally offensive campaign;

– Ask MPs to question the Government on the crisis in the health sector;

– Call on workers, including health workers of all categories, to be patient, reasonable, but also open to dialogue, so that the talks with the Government lead as earlier as possible to a resumption of work in the highest interest of the overwhelming majority of citizens, who have been arrogantly laughed at by a minority which came to power under the conditions that you know, and wishes to confiscate this power through diversion and propaganda.

The Union makes the Nation calls on all genuine democrats in our country to commit themselves further to sensitizing and raising the consciousness of our people, so that they are not, once again, deceived or being the victims of demagoguery and populism, for none will be allowed anymore to say, “We did not know” or “We have fooled ourselves.” The more profound is the night, the nearer is the day.