President pays tribute to health care workers |08 April 2021

By Patrick Joubert

To celebrate World Health Day and Health Workers’ Day yesterday, President Wavel Ramkalawan was at the Seychelles Hospital to pay tribute to all health care workers in the country.

He attended a small ceremony organised to honour their work and devotion, with special mention going to those working on the frontline in the fight against Covid-19.

“As you know, today is health workers’ day and it is my duty to come to the Seychelles Hospital to first of all say thank you to all our health workers for their devotion and for the hard work that they are doing. I truly appreciate the hours that they put in and the care that they are giving to our people,” President Ramkalawan said after the ceremony.

Also present were the Minister for Health, Peggy Vidot; the principal secretary for Health, Dr Bernard Valentin; Public Health Commissioner, Dr Jude Gedeon; chief executive of the Health Care Agency, Dr Danny Louange, among other senior health officers and heads of health departments.

During the ceremony, four health workers were honoured for their devotion, accomplishment and long years of service. They were nurse manager overseas treatment, Malcy Tambara (50 years of service); senior nursing officer, Oncology,   Marie-Ange Michel (49 years of service) and Isabelle Joubert, nurse manager North East Point Hospital and Hospice (45 years of service). Tony Laporte, a public health officer with 45 years of service, was not present.

In addressing President Ramkalawan and all present who were all lined up a metre apart on the balcony on the first floor and under the veranda of the ground floor of the Red Roof Building in line with Covid-19 health measures, Minister Vidot noted that April 7, 2021 – the day when we celebrate advances in world health, when we reflect on the persisting health challenges in the world and our country and when we laud and applaud health workers in our country – comes around this year, like last year, with the same urgency and yearning, from all of us, to finish once and for all, with that unprecedented Covid-19 pandemic.

“While the ministry of health inexorably continues to mobilise and intensify efforts all around to strengthen our health system in order to counteract Covid-19, we cannot forget the many other health challenges that equally threaten lives and livelihoods. At the epicentre of all these disease-storms are our health workers, often battered and weakened under the weight of their responsibility, but working hard nevertheless,” Minister Vidot added.

She stated that we are all conscious and appreciate that the majority of health workers in Seychelles are doing their very best, night and day, to keep all health services running smoothly and for all patients in need of health services to be equitably served, no matter what type of illness they present with.

“Today, I say thank you to all the health workers who are generously expending precious personal time and energy to prevent not just Covid-19 but also all the other diseases, from taking their toll on our population. Numerous are those working in the Covid-19 specific services but innumerable are those who are working tirelessly to keep all the other services running.

Minister Vidot, who highlighted on the success of the vaccination campaign against Covid-19, said that instantaneously, the best vaccine against the other illnesses is no other than healthy lifestyle.

She said that while our population maintains a healthy lifestyle, it will have our health care workers having less to do in the health centres and the hospitals.

“Therefore, all of us who appreciate the hard, self-less contribution that our health workers are making towards health improvement in Seychelles, let us come forward loudly at this critical time to promote all the preventive measures against Covid-19, to specially promote vaccination against Covid-19 and to promote healthy lifestyle generally,” Minister Vidot said.

She thanked all her fellow health workers, especially who should be celebrating and who were celebrating soberly yesterday, for the great work they are doing together. She called on them not to relent and together keep on working hard for the people to achieve a fairer and healthier country.

To end her speech, Minister Vidot called on the audience for a resounding round of applause as a sign of appreciation for the health workers who are working so hard for our nation.

After Minister Vidot’s speech, President Ramkalawan went on to interact with the health workers and after met with the three long-serving health workers for a meeting. Although not able to visit all of the health departments, President Ramkalawan later visited the workplace of the health drivers and those of the medical central store.

President Ramkalawan who was very satisfied with the two facilities said among challenges discussed was to identify a piece of land to build a modern and bigger medical store including its refrigeration storage, to relieve storage pressure on the present medical store while the drivers are in need of a proper resting area. He noted that the country has received two new ambulances among others to be received in the near future, which will also include a special mobile van for PCR test and some others for methadone delivery to clients.

The President added that talks will get under way soon with the health management to discuss on the improvement of the whole health system so as to give a better service.

The accompany photos taken by our photographer Jude Morel show some highlights of the ceremony yesterday.