On Wednesday, December 15, 2021, the Secretary General of the Ministry of Public Health, Dr Ranaou Abaché, hosted a press briefing on the debate born on social networks around the authorities’ suspension of free assisted childbirth in public health facilities.
In his speech, the Secretary General of the Ministry in charge of Public Health explained that assisted deliveries were not included in the initial 2006 gratuity. That’s why, he said, the Government has negotiated and obtained World Bank financing for the Population and Health Support Project (PAPS), which has several components, including free childbirth, implemented in 2020 in 7 regions of the country and due to end on December 31, 2021.
Better still, to further strengthen the management of this free healthcare, said Dr. Ranaou Abaché, at the Council of Ministers meeting on September 23, 2021, the Government issued a decree creating the National Institute for Medical Assistance (INAM), whose scope of action “will be extended to vulnerable sections of society such as the elderly and the destitute, in line with the national strategy for the social protection of vulnerable categories of the population”.
