Newborns manually ventilated at La Rabta Hospital after power outage
On Monday, July 27, 2026, Wajih Dhokkar, president of the Tunisian Organization of Young Doctors OTJM, and Moez Cherif, president of the Tunisian Association for the Defense of Children's Rights, reported critical dysfunctions in Tunisian hospitals. They highlighted a power outage in the neonatal intensive care unit of Wassila Bourguiba Hospital in La Rabta, which required doctors to manually ventilate newborns. A crisis unit was established, and other Tunis neonatology departments were contacted for potential transfers, though no deaths were recorded. Dhokkar stated that this incident reveals hospital system failures regarding power cuts, citing absent or faulty generators. He also mentioned Mahdia Hospital lacking water, forcing staff to seek supplies from nearby residents, and Gabès experiencing ten deaths in 24 hours, including two from a correctional facility, due to a lack of logistical resources to manage a heatwave. Dhokkar criticized the Ministry of Health's silence, suggesting hospital officials hesitate to declare emergencies without hierarchical instruction. Cherif confirmed the power cut at La Rabta's neonatology department, emphasizing that an intensive care unit should ensure continuous care and that oxygen deprivation in infants can cause severe neurological damage. These statements follow previous OTJM alerts estimating 150 to 200 heatwave-related deaths based on reports from young doctors, while regretting the absence of official figures from the Ministry of