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By AFP 
4h ago
Tunis, Tunisia – Hundreds of doctors protested in Tunisia on Friday after a young doctor was killed in an elevator accident at a hospital in the northwest of the country.
Badreddedine Aloui, 27, died Thursday in an elevator shaft after the elevator doors were opened, but no elevator, witnesses interviewed by local media said.
The elevator, at a hospital in the marginalized region of Jendouba, had reportedly remained in service despite a long-reported failure.
Hundreds of doctors, health workers and medical students gathered in front of the Health Ministry in the capital Tunis on Friday to demand that the Health Minister and other officials be fired, an AFP correspondent reported.
The hospital has been visited by two government ministers in recent months, including Health Minister Faouzi Mehdi in October.
“A young doctor has died as a result of this neglect,” said Zied Bouguerra, a member of the Tunisian Young Doctors Organization.
After the general strikes in Beja and Kairouan, young Tunisian doctors are on strike today, protesting the death of a 26-year-old colleague who fell into a broken elevator shaft while on duty, highlighting the health infrastructure broken public. @liliagaida https://t.co/W6uAuwjuxC
– Katharinagrünisl (@katharinagrneis) December 4, 2020
A protest was also held in the eastern port city of Sfax.
Local media reported that Prime Minister Hichem Mechichi ordered a state funeral, and that the surgeon be buried on Friday in his native Kasserine, in western Tunisia.
Tunisians have also taken to social media to report what they say are dysfunctional public services, particularly in the health sector, amid the novel coronavirus pandemic.
Another victim of corruption and institutional recklessness in Tunisia
Badr is a 27-year-old internal surgeon at Jendouba hospital in northwestern Tunisia who died after using the hospital’s broken elevator that fell from the fifth floor.#RIP#Espirit_death pic.twitter.com/Gezo4vdDtJ– Abdallah Kerkeni (@KerkeniAbdallah) December 4, 2020
Tunisia had managed to keep its outbreak largely contained until the end of June, but cases have skyrocketed in recent months.
The North African country has officially recorded more than 3,300 deaths and is approaching 100,000 infections.
I always watch the friend series. I remember the episode “the one who dies drake ramaray”. It was an amazing fiction. But it happened in real life. A doctor in jandouba had the same fate when he fell into the elevator cage#Tunisia #Tunisia #doctor #jandouba #Tunisia pic.twitter.com/xZtOsPIT5G
– Macherki ME (@EMacherki) December 4, 2020
Hospitals with limited resources and management problems have struggled to cope.
The accident occurred at a time when the country’s health budget is currently in parliament.
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