Algerian medics continue exam boycott demanding civil service reform

Algerian student physicians from paediatric, dermatology, medical oncology and gastroenterology departments have continued their protests by boycotting Sunday’s Diploma of Specialised Medical Studies (DEMS) exams.

Physicians have been boycotting the DEMS exams since December as part of a protest movement which has now entered its fifth month and calls for reform of the civil service.

The exams take place from 18 March to 12 April 2018, according to a schedule established by the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research, whose chief officer, Tahar Hadjar, threatened the strikers with “suspension” or exclusion if they continued their boycott.

Read: More doctors and teachers join pay strikes in Algeria

A planned meeting at the Ministry of Health with representatives from the Collective of Residents in Medical Sciences (CAMRA) began this morning after it was postponed on Wednesday 28 March following an accident that took the lives of two resident doctors and a member of their family.

The demands were discussed at a meeting last Monday between CAMRA and an intersectional committee, set up by the Ministry of Health, Population and Hospital Reform.

As well as the long, compulsory civil service doctors are expected to undergo once they qualify, the quality of treatment in Algeria is failing with diseases like measles and rubella still killing children.

According to reports last week, equipment at a cancer centre of the largest hospital in the country has been broken for three years. According to Professor Chaoui, the lack of reforms has made the Algerian health system “ungovernable”.

For him the most serious is the case of measles and the “loss of confidence of Algerians in the health system”. The number of vaccinations administered has fallen very low due to increased mistrust of a health system that has become inefficient. In the 70s “Algerians were fighting to vaccinate their children. Today they avoid doing it for lack of confidence,” Chaoui added.