Tunisia – Kaïs Saïed chairs council around Aghlabid medical city of Kairouan project

President of the Republic, Kais Saied, oversaw, on Wednesday, March 27, 2024, at Carthage Palace, a meeting devoted to examining the project related to the Aghlabid Medical City in the State of Kairouan.

At the beginning of the meeting, the President of the Republic emphasised that the public health institution in general has been slowly collapsing since the adoption of the so-called structural reform program at the end of the 1980s. twenty of the last century. Hospitals lacked the most basic supplies, although medical and paramedical teams are among the most qualified globally and in high demand, even in Western countries. The President of the Republic emphasised that our country, which does not reject international cooperation in this area, must find answers that would motivate the best physicians to stay in Tunisia and encourage them more to work in the interior regions.

The Head of State clarified that hundreds of our best professionals are departing our country in the health field and other sectors because they have not found the appropriate conditions to work in Tunisia. If we compare these increasing waves of brain drain to the loans we aim to obtain from abroad, then it is Tunisia which lends these funds. Because a professor of medicine or a paramedical staff cannot be valued at a price.

The President of the Republic also explained that health is a constitutional right for every human being and in a certain number of international texts, and that the rights included in the texts of laws or treaties cannot stay rules mentioned in the forums and without effect, most of the time, in health centres and hospitals.

The President of the Republic also addressed the problems which slowed down the launch of the Aghlabide Medical City project in Kairouan. This massive project has been stalled since 2020, and some departments are still operating with internal and foreign parties to stop completion work from starting.

The meeting also examined the legal form that the Aghlabid Medical City will take and the choice of the most flexible, efficient and rapid framework to catch up. The means of internal and external financing of this project of national importance were further discussed.