Health systems in Algeria And the politics of media treatment Seo-media accountability of a sample of television health programmes

Abstract

The consistent commitment to a policy of free public healthcare and the substantial budgets allocated to it have resulted in an overall improvement in its performance indicators. However, it continues to face numerous challenge, such as ensuring equal access to quality services, especially for socially marginalized groups, an excessive focus on hospital-based healthcare, and the need fortransparency in management. This study aims to understand the media treatment of these issues.

 The content analysis methodology was applied to a purposive sample of 06 health programs on both public and private television channels in both the French and Arabic language ، The study found that most private audio-visual channels in Algeria tend to avoid critical analysis of the healthcare system, opting for superficial and sometimes simplistic coverage of healthcare information, often neglecting anthropological and sociological dimensions of the topic. In contrast, the public television, while addressing various healthcare topics, primarily focuses on hosting stakeholders in the healthcare sector. Nevertheless, it remains primarily a political and economic discussion that aligns with the political discourse emphasizing free treatment and substantial healthcare budgets. At the same time, Algeria witnesses a significant outflow of doctors and patients to the private and foreign healthcare sectors, further obscuring official information about the state of the healthcare system and the absence of healthcare investigations, which are major obstacles to achieving transparency in the sector's management.