The Moroccan Ministry of Health and Social Protection has dispatched a central committee to Hassan II Hospital in Agadir following the death of a pregnant woman earlier this week, amid mounting tensions between the ministry and health sector unions over staff suspensions.
Sources told Hespress AR that the delegation, which arrived Thursday, includes senior officials such as Adil Zniber-Bach, the ministry’s director of human resources.
The committee is expected to conduct a detailed assessment of systemic problems at the facility. The ministry also informed union representatives that it may reconsider the decision to suspend pay for medical professionals placed under precautionary suspension.
The regional health directorate of Souss-Massa had announced on Wednesday that a medical and administrative investigation was opened after the woman’s death on Tuesday morning. The inquiry aims to determine accountability and recommend necessary disciplinary measures.
Union representatives met with Health Minister Amin Tahraoui on Wednesday to advocate for the reinstatement of the suspended workers. In a joint statement, the union coalition expressed “firm rejection of blaming health professionals for the collapse of a system suffering from chronic shortages in human resources, underfunding, deteriorating infrastructure, lack of essential equipment and medicines, and poor governance.”
The unions attributed the recurring fatalities at Agadir’s main hospital to “deep structural dysfunctions caused by years of inadequate government health policies.”
They also condemned the ministry’s earlier press release announcing the suspension of several staff members and the referral of the inspector general’s report to the public prosecutor, calling the move “public defamation” and questioning the inspectorate’s inaction toward “widespread corruption” in the sector.
Unions question management and oversight
Mustapha Jaa, national secretary of the Independent Nurses Union, said unions had told the minister that “the systemic dysfunction itself, not the workers, is behind the deaths” at Hassan II Hospital.
“If 17 professionals were suspended, how do we explain the new death recorded this Tuesday?” he asked, adding that the ministry’s delay in sending an investigation team until after eight deaths and weeks of public protests “shows that the issue is one of mismanagement.”
Jaa also criticized the decision to refer the suspended workers to court rather than initiating internal disciplinary procedures. “Meanwhile, the regional director and the provincial delegate were relieved of their duties without any disciplinary action,” he noted.
He cited severe shortages in anesthesiologists and resuscitation doctors, saying “80% of childbirths are handled by nurses and midwives trained in anesthesia,” placing them in “impossible positions where they face prosecution whether they act or abstain.”
Jaa accused the ministry of using the suspended staff as “scapegoats” to project an image of reform, saying it “stripped them of their right to presumption of innocence.”
The health minister has since promised a “transparent investigation,” while the ministry signaled it might review its decision to cut the suspended workers’ salaries.
Protests target system, not staff
Another union source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the suspensions represent “the largest disciplinary action against health professionals in Morocco’s history,” affecting “seven midwives, four anesthesia nurses, four anesthesiologists, and three obstetricians.”
The source confirmed that the central ministry delegation visited the hospital Thursday and said unions hope it will “address the issue comprehensively, including the case of the suspended staff.”
The source added that public anger in Agadir “is directed not at the medical workers but at a facility that fails to meet citizens’ expectations,” warning that “a punitive approach toward healthcare workers risks fueling public hostility against them.”
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