Moroccan ENT Specialist Jailed After Patient’s Death Sparks Investigation

The patient died in October 2023 at the regional hospital of Khénifra, after being operated on by the doctor in a private clinic in the city of Azrou. The defendant is being prosecuted in detention for illegal practice of medicine in the public sector while he is registered on the list of doctors working in the private sector. Three other people, namely the owner of the hospital, the owner of the clinic and a nurse, are being prosecuted at liberty for illegal practice of medicine, lack of professional liability insurance contract, complicity and involuntary manslaughter by negligence.

On the instructions of the competent prosecutor’s office, the judicial police of Khénifra opened an investigation to determine the causes and circumstances of the patient’s death. The investigators, accompanied by the Azrou police elements, went to the clinic to obtain as much information as possible on this case, including the deceased’s medical file and all the details on the circumstances of the surgical operation he underwent.

According to a member of the Moroccan Association of Human Rights of Khénifra, the victim’s name is Ismail Youssfi, a young man thrown out on the street after a surgical operation that went wrong, and who was transported to the Khénifra hospital where he died a week later.

"The doctor was arrested. We express our deep gratitude to all the parties who intervened in this case from beginning to end, and who acted with impartiality and objectivity, to appease Ismail’s soul in the heavens, and the hearts of his family and young orphans on earth," wrote the human rights activist on his Facebook page.