Soft lighting, brightly coloured walls, stencilled animal in the rooms, a warm atmosphere. At the Clinique pédiatrique de Tunis, everything is in place to help the patients forget the illnesses that have brought them here.
"The best reward for a doctor is to be able to put a smile back on the faces of children and their parents," says Dr. Nizar Nouaili. director of the clinic, which is located in the Jardins d'El Menzah, in Ariana Ville, to the north of the Tunisian capital.
The medical facility is a recipient of financing from Tunisia's Amen Bank, made possible by a €35 million line of credit extended by the African Development Bank to support various sectors of the economy.
"This line of credit has made it possible to boost investment in all sectors, resulting in the creation of over 1,300 jobs. In this respect, the African Development Bank is a first-rate partner," says Neji Ghandri, Chairman of the management board of Amen, one of the country's largest banks.
Director Nouaili explains how the clinic emerged. "The care of rare diseases was facing a gap, with no specialized structure in pediatrics, and a lack of intensive care beds. That's why I decided to get involved."
Since its opening in 2019, the clinic has seen its occupancy rate rise from 30 percent in 2020 to 90 percent in 2023. A success story for the director and his staff. Over fifty doctors have been recruited, and 250 permanent jobs created. Today, the facility enjoys international recognition, and offers cutting-edge medical skills and state-of-the-art technology, bringing smiles to ailing children and hope to their parents.
Fatima is a four-year-old girl suffering from a very rare auto-immune digestive disease. She traveled with her parents all the way from Guinea Conakry in West Africa. The Tunis Pediatric Clinic represented the last ray of hope for this family, who had already knocked on many doors without finding adequate treatment.
Fatima has since come a long way from her initial emergency consultation, and is now in remission. Mohamed Bejaoui, a professor of pediatrics who has followed her every step of the way, says. "What's interesting is that throughout this care journey, there has been a multidisciplinary approach." He cites various resources and specialties within the clinic: gastroenterology, homeopathy, nutrition, immunology, radiology, hematology and pediatrics.
Like Fatima, patients come from all across Africa, including Libya, Mauritania, Chad, Burkina Faso and Côte d'Ivoire, to benefit from these cutting-edge specialties. Dr. Nouaili is drawing on his extensive network of medical specialists to expand his clinic.
"Our doctors are regional references in their specialties, which naturally helps us to forge international partnerships. For example, we have agreements with Libya for the treatment of cancer pathologies, leukemia and solid tumors," he says, adding that he has also signed an agreement with the Mauritanian Health Insurance Fund and a number of international insurance companies, who send African patients to the clinic.
The Clinique pédiatrique de Tunis now aims to build on its successes, strengthening its reputation as a center of excellence for serious medical and surgical pediatric diseases. "We carry out research in genetics, and we have a 70 percent positivity rate in our examinations," the clinic director emphasizes.
Over a million foreigners come to Tunisia each year for healthcare, and the Clinique pédiatrique de Tunis aims to position itself among the leaders in this flourishing medical tourism market. Director Nouaili stresses that the goal is to strengthen its African partnerships by exploring innovative practices, like the deployment of telemedicine to prepare patients remotely and monitor them after treatment. He's proud of how far the clinic has come. "We're very responsive to emergencies, and we offer highly competitive care," he enthuses.
