Hon. Joshua Osih
Hon. Joshua Osih, SDF MP has reacted on the incident at Laquintine hospital that leads to the dead of Monique Koumaté and her twins.The SDF MP wrote in French on his official Facebook wall .Below is a translation from his post.
Four days after the shock of the Laquintinie Hospital drama, a lot has been said and much ink continues to flow. I try to understand how our country our public services have become as inhuman and also how we, citizens, have been able to accept for nearly thirty years this collective descent into hell.
The position of the Yaounde regime, in scandalous contradiction with the field authorities, we demonstrated that despite the national shock and collective emotion that hug us, the government persists in not wanting to understand the real problem. Ridiculously, this regime wants to create a debate on the place and time of the death of Monique and her two children rather than the cause of the three deaths.
We must stop speculating on the place of death of this martyr and her twins and caring rather on the causes of the tragedy. If one of the two hospitals had done his home work and immediate care, we would not be here.
The real reason for our rebellion is that we all recognize in Monique the fact that She died just like too many Cameroonian before her during childbearing.
Just as we all recognize in Rose, the brave niece who wanted to save two babies from the belly of their dead mother.
-We are very angry when there is load shedding and our children must prepare for exams with candles despite the increasingly expensive bills that we pay our income in addition to time.
-We are very angry when we have to travel and face a painful ordeal just to have a bit of non-potable water Dispite the fact that we pay bills on time. We are very angry when we defy injustice and corruption in everyday life.
-We are angry when we overcome the multiple barriers designed by the Yaounde regime to impose daily survival on us , despite the fact that our creativity is envied by many. But it has to confess publicly and humbly that although we recognize ourselves in Rose, she fought us all with her courageous act.
We also all recognize in the mortuary attendant that, despite the omnipresence of death around him, he has shown more humanity and respect than the pain inflicted by these doctors and health personnel who are supposed to save lives.
The Biya regime must understand that by killing Monique and her babies and pursuing its logic headlong which consisted to arrest Rose and mortuary attendant all Cameroonians have been struck violently, without ethnic or political distinction.
Childbearing does not kill; the killing was by our failing and the corrupt health system. Monique Koumateke died not because she was expecting twins, but because she did not have access to care. And this is where the crime is.
Yes, this crime is attributable to the State. In this case, the state crime lies in the persistent and unexplained denial of Mr. Biya regime to facilitate, through the establishment of effective, adequate sanitation, access to health care in great majority of Cameroonians, despite significant human and financial resources it has. This regime had however promised us three decades ago health for all by the year two thousand.
• It is a crime attributable to the State because while Monique and her family suffered because of this ordeal, all Cameroonians subsequently suffered in her flesh becoming the reality of horror in this hospital, while President enjoyed adequate health care in Switzerland.
• It is a crime attributable to the State because while a taxi driver improvised ambulance driver in the fact that almost none is our top state committed to avoiding hospitals they yet are responsible, are regularly evacuate with taxpayers’ money, sometimes for simple checkups.
• It is a crime attributable to the State because health care in a Republic should not be accessible to more affluent society. The right of all citizens of Cameroon to health is an inalienable constitutional right.
• It is a crime attributable to the State because the perpetuation of the failure of our health care system is a clear willingness of the Yaounde regime. Just note that the insufficient budget allocations of this ministry, also largely covered by foreign donations, are lower than the various expenses and waste plan, covering the right fuel, seminars and symposia, apparels, unnecessary trips bloated delegations presidential and short stays private.
• It is a crime because of the persistent and unexplained denial of Mr. Biya regime to facilitate, through the establishment of effective, adequate sanitation, access to health care in great majority for Cameroonians, despite significant human and financial resources.
• It is a crime because while Monique and her family suffered because of this ordeal, all Cameroonians subsequently suffers same fate discovering the reality of the horror in this hospital while Biya and his cohorts enjoy adequate health care in Switzerland.
• It is a crime attributable to the State because while a taxi driver played the role of an ambulance driver, almost all top state officials are regularly evacuated with taxpayers’ money, sometimes for simple checkups abroad.
• It is a crime attributable to the State because health care in a Republic should not be accessible to more affluent society. The right of all citizens of Cameroon to health is an inalienable constitutional right.
• It is a crime attributable to the State because the perpetuation of the failure of our healthcare system is a clear willingness of the Yaounde regime. Just note that the insufficient budget allocations of this ministry, also largely covered by foreign donations, are lower than the various expenses and waste plan, covering the right fuel, seminars and symposia, unnecessary trips bloated delegations presidential and short private stays abroad.
• It is also a crime attributable to the State because we can not claim to have good doctors available in our public hospitals while the public service does nothing to recruit and retain. Poverty wages of public doctors can not excuse what happened, but can be an early explanation of the problem of our hospitals.
This problem would not have existed if there was genuine political will at the top to have a functioning system. A country can not entrust its health system to executives who come for many, not to make ends meet and have to find work in the private. This situation is so serious today; doctors are authorized to see and treat privately in public units.
And if Monique was French or American?After reading all that we live since last Saturday, there is reason to believe that Monique’s problem was not only that she was pregnant, but most, unfortunately, it is Cameroon.
If Monique was French or American, would she have been declared dead and abandoned on the pavement of a hospital?
Would we have other priorities than to save her life and that of her twins?
Would the family of the victim be prown with fared the same way?
Would we have put under arrest the niece of the victim and the mortuary attendant?
One thing is certain in that if Monique was French or American, the Yaounde regime would have reacted promptly, and coercive measures taken immediately, Government and local officials sanctioned moral and material support for the family of the victim insured, the niece of the victim and the morgue decorated for bravery in the palace of the Unit.
All at great fanfare, if Monique was French or American.The world’s media were stunned much or more than the Cameroonians. The world would have revolted against a dehumanizing and barbaric regime.
True to its methods, the regime of Mr Biya would have managed to explain the occurrence of this drama with these foreign powers, pointing to scapegoats that would be immediately liquidated. While it is established that the fish always rots from the head.
Just remember the extraordinary pugnacity and resources in place to cover the foreign hostages Boko Haram and compare this to the 1,200 people Cameroonians including several valiant soldiers.
As MP for the constituency in which the state crime took place, I called regime of Yaoundé to take urgent and appropriate measures to clean up our health system which is ineffective in any point of view, outdated and hostile to the population.
We must urgently set up a Universal Health Insurance, proposed by the SDF for over twenty years now, which will be accessible to all because mandatory premium will reflect the level of real income of the insured individuals and their families. This insurance will remove one of the largest shields access to public healthcare that is the cost of access to care.
But for this dream to be effective, it is essential to ban medical evacuations at taxpayer expense. This is one of my political battles which I do not appreciate.
We should not be paying for the proper functioning of a health system that does not use and we do not know. We do not know the importance of a public hospital if you only use its morgues. Cameroon has the curious and fatal peculiarity of having morgues with larger outdoor amenities that patients’ rooms.
If we always seek treatment abroad at the expense of the taxpayer, we will never know that the coffins and funeral sellers display their products in view of patients on their arrival and that the mortuary is adjacent to the main entrance of the most of our public hospitals.
In a democratic country that respects an electoral process which gives every citizen the right to choose, it is obvious that all the Monique of this country, all of us who suffer at the expense of an elite have never chosen democratically what we live today.
We need Universal Health Insurance In our hospitals. What happened to Monique should never have happened, we have the duty to strengthen our electoral system and democracy for the people to be able to punish a failed leadership that does not keep its promises.
Because in such circumstances, in a Republic that calls itself democratic, the government – or, at least the minister in charge of public health – resigns and in case it persists in a headlong rush, it is systematically ousted by elections.
The evil Report of the regime whose defects and deficiencies have led to the almost simultaneous deaths of three compatriots in shocking circumstances is a duty for all in the Republic, not a political recovery as the quiet political nightingale haunted continuously by the fear be ejected at any time the National buffet.
We lost a mom, two babies because we passively accept a system that kills our children and breaks a part of our humanity. Monique for all of this country, Continues the struggle to impose equality of opportunity and social justice so that our living together becomes a positive reality.
It is only at this price that our children will never live what we live, what killed Monique and her twins.
Finally, it happened at the hospital Laquintinie has at least helped spell the end of the ball of the sycophants of the party-state chanting loudly that Cameroon is paradise, and King Biya comes just after God.
How many of these impostors who parade at the head of motions of support and others calling for his candidature have been treated in our hospitals? They certainly number just the fingers of one hand.
For all those who were out to demonstrate on Sunday 14 March, I say once again thank you.
RIP Monique, has struggled continued.
For best Cameroon,
Hon. Joshua OSIH.
