Rabat – Morocco’s Minister of Health and Social Protection, Amine Tehraoui, said on Tuesday in Rabat that the government’s diagnosis of the health sector revealed both progress and long-standing challenges. These challenges, he said, required deep structural reform to ensure equitable and efficient healthcare for all Moroccans.
Speaking before the Committee on Education, Cultural, and Social Affairs at the House of Councillors, Tehraoui said the government has launched a national reform plan for the health system as a key priority for building a strong social state and reducing regional inequalities.
This comes amid nationwide youth protests that Morocco has been witnessing since late September. Known as GenZ 212 protests, these demonstrations demand better healthcare and education services.
In his remarks, the minister recalled the adoption of Framework Law No. 06.22, which serves as a legal and regulatory roadmap for developing a fair, effective, and modern health system. He explained that the reform is based on four main pillars: infrastructure, human resources, governance, and digitalization.
Expanding hospital infrastructure
Tehraoui said the reform aims to establish university hospital centers (CHUs) in all regions of Morocco. Until 2022, there were only four such hospitals, in Rabat, Oujda, Fez, and Casablanca.
Since then, the Mohammed VI University Hospital in Tangier has opened, and new centers are expected to start operating soon in Agadir and Laayoune, as well as the new Ibn Sina Hospital in Rabat. Additional hospitals are being built in Guelmim, Errachidia, and Beni Mellal, the minister said.
He stated that the ministry has also launched a major program to rehabilitate 1,400 primary healthcare centers, two-thirds of which are in rural areas. So far, about 1,000 centers have been renovated, with the remaining 400 expected to be completed by the end of this year.
A new phase will soon begin to rehabilitate 1,600 additional centers, bringing the total to more than 3,000 improved facilities nationwide.
But for Moroccans, the issue does not lie in the programs the ministry launches, but in their implementations and efficiency in addressing the sector’s challenges.
Human resources
The minister also focused on the importance of developing human resources, noting that the government has created four new medical faculties and institutes to increase training opportunities.
The number of seats for general medicine students rose from 2,650 in 2019 to 6,414 in 2025, while training centers for nurses increased their capacity from 2,735 places in 2019 to 9,500 in 2024.
Members of the parliamentary committee welcomed these efforts but stressed that the shortage of healthcare workers remains one of the biggest challenges. They urged the government to adopt urgent measures, including redeploying staff, partnering with regional and local councils, and offering more financial incentives to attract and retain professionals.
Moroccans complain that hospitals across the country suffer from shortages of healthcare workers, with emergency patients reporting that they sometimes have to wait several hours to be seen by a doctor.
The situation is especially dire at the Hassan II regional hospital in Agadir, which was the focal point of the ongoing GenZ 212 protests. In mid September, protests began at the hospital after the death of at least eight women following cesarean surgeries within one week.
Locals protested what they described as “catastrophic” conditions at the hospital, which suffers from overcrowding, shortage of medical staff, shortage of medication, and non-functioning equipment. Protests soon spread to other hospitals across the country because Moroccan youth mobilized online and launched the GenZ 212 protests.
