Mr. Minister, when will your Government finally trust local expertise? It is, however, proven, known and even recognized beyond our borders. Use a foreign NGO to operate bobology while Cameroonian NGOs and medical associations exist. Who does not know Dr. Bwelle with his NGO Ascovime? Or Professor Mouafo who is foaming the country to make cleft palates? Organizations from Cameroon’s interior and Diaspora exist and can draw all the human resources that you want (MEDCAMER, Camfomedics, etc.). What do you think is the impact of this approach on the image of our country? What confidence can patients have in our health system if each time we have to wait for a « white wizard » to be able to take proper care? That, in my view, is counterproductive. Indeed, they end up being conditioned and wrongly think that the gentile foreigners bring them all for free while we, inhuman, ask for money to do anything. This way of thinking is present in the collective unconscious, making us the scapegoats of a congested, inflamed and constipated system that merely places superficial dressings on deep wounds.

Then, Minister, tell us what the cost of this gratuity is for the State. 6000 people will leave from all over the country with at least as many nurses. Several ministries will ensure their transport, nutrition, stay in Douala. The world’s largest private hospital ship will spend 10 months in the autonomous port of Douala, with hundreds of technical personnel and crew members. Although it is humanitarian, it is obvious that this gratuity is funded upstream by the generous donors of Mercy Ships and the Cameroonian State. Would it not be possible, Mr. Minister, with these same public funds, to have these patients operated by Cameroonians in their region with all the training and capacity-building of local doctors and upgrading of the technical facilities?