Rigobert who had a stroke on Sunday 2nd October shall be evacuated this morning to Paris, France. The Biya Government had allocated 48.650.000 CFA for the trip. Cameroonians though wishing him a quick recovery founded fault in the social injustice this brought about.

A medical doctor working at Yaounde Central Hospital and a close friend to BaretaNews who spoke on condition of anonymity wrote to us :

” Mark, the case of Rigobert Song has just shown how useless the health care system in Cameroon is and how in equipped our hospitals are. This patriotic and emblematic Cameroonian has been lying in CURY ( the Cameroon/Korea Yaoundé Emergency Centre) since suffering a hemorrhagic stroke Sunday. With all the professors in Neurosurgery, neurology, internal medicine who are in Yaoundé, the only thing that comes to their mind is evacuation to France. The problem is:

(1) it is costing 48,650,000fcfa of tax payers money just to transfer him to the same hospital in France where Jacques Chirac and his wife are currently hospitalised. This is the same disposition that is taken to evacuate most government officials who are evacuated for medical care abroad. Imagine how much is spent to evacuate 10 government officials abroad before paying their medical bills. This money could be used to equip a true reference hospital in Cameroon.

(2) can an ordinary Cameroonian citizen benefit from this same government largesse? Scores of Cameroonians suffer hemorrhagic strokes daily, they are hospitalised and they die in our hospitals, and no one tells them that there is no hospital in Cameroon that can manage that condition.

(3) What is a Reference hospital? Why wasting country money creating other boxes of unequipped structures and calling them reference hospitals? With 7 tertiary hospitals in Cameroon, none is equipped to handle a hemorrhagic stroke, its a pity. Wish you speedy Recovery Rigobert Song…”

Another Cameroon youth activist Mr Timah Rene got so bitter. Hear him

“..This is a social injustice of the first order. Song is not financially unfit to care for himself. Why should assistance be given to the rich and famous while the needy are left unattended to?. We are talking about a family of the Songs, Alexander and the rest. More to that an individual of that level ought to have a premium health insurance. That should be the direct responsibility of the insurance company.
You guys should stop all this open discrimination. Cameroonians have served this country in different categories. From those soldiers battling Boko Haram to the headmasters and teachers in the suburbs of Cameroon. I don’t care what others will say but I think the rich and the famous do not need what has been denied to the needy…”

Another activist fumed “For more than 30 years with all the money embezzled no hospital to treat themselves but always huge sums of money for evacuations .My issue is why 56 years after Independence we still don’t have a medical facility to take care of his situation .What if that guy doesn’t make it during the 8 hours flights, we all know the role time plays in life saving . How did they come out with that money? What provision in the budget allocates that amount? Is it the facility or lack of personnel? What happened to the so-called reference hospital or teaching hospitals? Well we don’t have medical facilities because we have to pay for private villas for our public servants abroad”

So many questions to ask. The health system in the country is indeed a mess. BaretaNews can now see the level of anger filled with Cameroonians. We, however, wish Song a quick recovery.

God is still saying something.