The death in hospital of a pregnant woman after what the local press presented as a long agony and a denial of care, arouses considerable emotion in Senegal, pushing the head of state to react and promise “all the lighton this drama.
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The facts go back several days and occurred in a public hospital in the city of Louga, in the north of the country. According to the Senegalese press, Astou Sokhna, in her thirties, married and nine months pregnant, died there on April 7 after unsuccessfully requesting a caesarean section. The staff of the establishment reportedly refused her request, arguing that her operation was not planned, and threatened to kick her out if she insisted. “Unacceptableheadlined the newspaper Liberation on Monday.
An “administrative procedure” initiated
According to the media, the young woman waited for twenty hours for an intervention that never came, before expiring while pronouncing words widely relayed Monday and Tuesday on social networks: “Operate on me because I don’t know if I’ll still be here tomorrow“. Her baby was not saved. The director of the hospital, Amadou Guèye Diouf, declared Monday evening to haveinitiated an administrative procedure to elucidate the contours of this case […] and take the appropriate action“. The case still fueled several headlines in the print and online press on Tuesday.
Saying to havelearned with the greatest sadness of the death of Mrs. Astou Sokhna at the hospital“, President Macky Sall published Monday evening a message of”heartfelt condolences to his familyon the Snapchat social network, very popular among Senegalese women. “I instructed the competent authorities to shed light on the causes of death in order to locate all responsibilities. No failure will be tolerated“added the Head of State, ensuring that he had”to heart“the health sector and insist”every day on improving the care of populations“.
A lack of human, technical and financial resources
A country with a Muslim majority, Senegal has made significant progress in the area of women’s rights in recent years, as evidenced by the adoption in early April of a “law on the protection of pregnant women“, supposed in particular to put an end to the widespread practice of dismissing an employee when she is pregnant. But the UN and rights defenders regularly call on the authorities to do more to put an end to the discrimination, including legal discrimination, suffered by women, as well as the violence to which they are routinely subjected.
The Louga tragedy is the latest in a series of tragedies that have occurred in Senegal in the health sector, where unions regularly deplore a lack of human, technical and financial resources. Some have already hit the headlines, such as the death of four newborns in April 2021 following a fire at the hospital in the town of Linguère, near Louga. “What hurts the most is when we Senegalese pretend to discover, terrified, what is happening in this country. Today is the hospital. Tomorrow, (it will be) another (thing). We will forget and we will move on to the next controversy. The daily life is dramatic in that it trivializes everything“laments a Twitter user on Tuesday.
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On social networks, many messages denounce the treatment reserved for patients in public structures and in particular the delays which push many patients to turn to private sector services, despite a higher cost. “We can’t keep holding God responsible for our actions“, wrote a woman on Twitter. A petition calling forjustice for Astouhas already obtained tens of thousands of signatures, and a march is planned for Friday in Louga on the same theme. According to the press, the husband of the victim filed a complaint Monday with the local court.
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