Childbirth ordeal highlights pressure on Senegal’s public hospitals

DAKAR, Senegal — Awa Diba went into labour about 24 hours before health workers across Senegal were due to begin a strike, entering a public hospital as a trainee nurse and leaving with a healthy daughter.

Her account of the birth has highlighted the difficulties facing patients and medical workers in Senegal’s public healthcare system, including inadequate infrastructure, unreliable electricity and shortages of equipment.

Diba said she shared a room with four other women. She described cracks across the ceiling, a fan that did not work, unequal access to air conditioning and electricity that cut in and out.

“There is a lot of shouting,” she said, adding that she had seen things inside the hospital that shocked her. Diba also said some women’s cries were met with the words, “Be quiet.”

“They are afraid of dying,” Diba said of some patients entering public hospitals. “When they enter, they think: ‘I will never come out. I won’t leave here alive. I’m going to die.’”

Strike over working conditions

Doctors, pharmacists and dental surgeons held a strike on September 16 and 17, following a 48-hour stoppage the previous week. Emergency care continued during the action, but routine medical activities were disrupted.

The health workers’ union SAMES called for increased recruitment, improved career and pension conditions, and greater investment in hospitals and medical equipment, particularly outside Dakar. The union said its demands dated back to 2023.

Dr Diabel Drame, SAMES’s secretary-general, said the government had not offered a credible response to the union’s requests.

“We waited, we hoped and we followed up. Unfortunately, no plausible response was given to us,” Drame said.

Dr Marc Manga, discussing the condition of the health system, questioned how hospitals could provide quality treatment without basic equipment. He also said some patients had to travel hundreds of kilometres to obtain a diagnosis.

“How can we talk about quality of care when hospitals lack basic equipment and patients have to travel hundreds of kilometres to get a diagnosis?” Manga said.

Staffing and financial constraints

Figures from Senegal’s National Medical Council showed that 5,236 doctors were registered at the end of 2024, including 4,407 working in the public sector.

The pressure on public services comes as Senegal manages significant fiscal constraints. The International Monetary Fund reported that the economy grew by 6.7 percent in 2025 as the country produced oil and gas. However, the IMF estimated total public-sector debt at 132 percent of gross domestic product at the end of 2024.

A reconciliation exercise also revised central government debt at the end of 2023 from 74.4 percent to 111 percent of GDP. Government audits after President Bassirou Diomaye Faye took office uncovered previously undisclosed borrowing and contributed to the revisions.

The debt burden has left the government with less room to spend. Foreign aid cuts have also affected healthcare programmes covering HIV, malaria and reproductive health, according to Le Monde and other organisations working in Senegal.

A wider public-service challenge

Diba grew up in Casamance in southern Senegal and studied digital communication at university in Ziguinchor. She later moved to Dakar, retrained and completed placements at Hopital Principal de Dakar and the Albert Royer children’s hospital.

She plans to specialise in haematology, caring for patients with cancer, leukaemia and sickle-cell disease. But after her own childbirth experience, she said she did not want her daughter to face similar conditions.

“I don’t want my daughter to experience this,” Diba said.

Senegal’s National Agency of Statistics and Demography reported that unemployment among people aged 15 to 34 stood at 28.4 percent in the first quarter of 2026, adding to wider concerns about access to opportunity and public services.

President Faye has described the global debt system as “inadequate” and “inequitable”, arguing that it limits access to essential services including healthcare and education. He was also expected to call at the United Nations for wider debt relief for African countries.