The minister of Health, Ashock Jugnauth, seems determined to see through all the projects that have been set up over the past four years. Nearly Rs 2 billion have been injected in health infrastructure - extensions, new buildings and plans for brand new hospitals.

The sites that should be ready by the end of the year are the New Central Outpatient Department (OPD) of Victoria Hospital and the New Souillac Hospital. The new psychiatric hospital should open by March 2005. The construction works in these three units have cost more than Rs 700 million and there have been renovation works elsewhere to the tune of half a billion rupees.

The New OPD in Victoria Hospital, financed by the Arab Bank for Development in Africa, should have been ready last January but the minister asked for changes in the infrastructure to accommodate a Neurosurgery and Spinal block later.

The New Souillac hospital should also be completed by December. This brand new unit will be used as transit and annex to Jawaharlal-Nehru Hospital in Rose-Belle. It will be fitted with modern high-tech equipment for brain surgery and renal transplants that will thus ease the work load in Nehru hospital. The new psychiatric hospital in Beau-Bassin, which should have opened in December, will finally operate to replace the existing Brown Sequard in March 2005.

Two major projects are still on the minister’s agenda. He hopes that the Bambous regional hospital will materialise very quickly. The latter aims at reducing pressure on Jeetoo and Victoria hospitals where the 1,500 patients from Petite-Rivière to Rivière Noire are sent. The other priority is the hospital for non-communicable diseases to be built in Moka. It would also house a research centre on recurrent diseases in Mauritius such as diabetes, high blood pressure and cardiovascular ailments.

The New Jeetoo Hospital and an extension to the Cardiac Centre of Pamplemousses with a new wing for paediatrics, new surgical and intensive care units seem to have been postponed to a later time.

<B>The challenge of people</B>

Minister Ashock Jugnauth will have a lot to show in terms of new hospitals and infrastructure changes in existing ones. But will that be enough to provide a top-quality health service and enhance his goodwill?

His concern is genuine about staffing. He has confirmed that the cooperation with Bor-deaux University will go on. Likewise, Montpellier will help in staff training in scarcity fields like cardiology and surgery. 3,500 staff have been employed over the past three years.

However, the conflict with doctors (See inset) and nurses, who have been forbidden from working in private clinics during their free time, shows that his task will not be a very easy one.

Having beautiful modern buildings and high-tech equipment is one thing; but medicine is a field where the affective plays an important part. Public health is a question of people: both patients and doctors. A staff happy with its conditions of work and feeling that its efforts are given the right recognition will ultimately lead to better service to patients.

<B>Why are doctors so angry with their minister...</B>

Doctors and the Health minister Ashock Jugnauth are at cross-purposes these days. The accusations of laxity and amateurishness concerning doctors by the minister after one of his surprise visits to Victoria hospital has provoked strong protests from doctors. The president of the union of GPs, Ashok Rughoobur has, in turn, voiced out the difficult conditions in which doctors have to work.

Minister Ashock Jugnauth had been shocked at the number of doctors in the Accident & Emergency department, which had led to an overcrowded waiting room. There was in fact only one doctor instead of five. He was most angry as his instructions to keep the waiting to a minimum in the emergency department seemed to have been ignored.

But the doctors deny the accusation of laxity and reckon they have to deal with 1,000 to 1,200 patients a day at the emergency department, with sometimes only three doctors.

One of the main problems is that the notion of emergency is quite elastic. People coming to visit a patient in hospital often seize the opportunity to call at the emergency department for a check up. Doctors who have refuses to see them, have been “assaulted”. This is why medical staff now works under police and security guards’ protection.

According to the union president, medical staff feel that the authorities have considered only the patients’ side and really seen the staff’s point of view. “Since he has been at the head of the ministry, has Ashock Jugnauth improved the conditions of hospital staff? What has he done? There is interference in the functioning of the system. You often have phone calls to ask you to admit someone or help another…” The main problem is with patients who “show a contempt for hospitals. They throw their rubbish on the floor and relieve themselves anywhere.”

For Ashok Rughoobur, the minister knows that the main difficulties come from the deficiencies in infrastructure and equipment as well as inadequate staffing. He considers that there should be a real dialogue if things are to improve.