Kinshasa, June 24th, 2025 (CPA) – The ‘medical officers’ of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) were invited on Tuesday in Kinshasa to redouble their efforts to ensure the quality of care for the population, at the opening of the workshop for monitoring and evaluating the medical officers trained in the 2021, 2023 and 2024 cohorts. ‘At the end of this workshop, I would like to express the hope that the medical officers throughout the Republic will redouble their efforts to ensure the quality of care for the population through their availability and ongoing support for the implementation of universal health cover (UHC) in the DRC, with a view to providing easy access at low cost to all sections of the population’, said Dr Emmanuel Lukombe, Secretary General for Social Welfare. According to Dr Lukombe, the two-day workshop will also focus on evaluating the performance of the 113 doctors trained in 3 cohorts (2021, 2023 and 2024), with a view to ensuring that the expected results are achieved, given the importance of this professional category in the CSU. ‘Within the framework of the CSU, doctors have a duty to support quality assurance of care in the field, and the medical officers are there to see how those referred to the various structures are being adequately cared for, and that the care they receive is of good quality’, said Dr Lukombe. The Secretary General for Social Security said that the aim of organizing this work was to see whether the skills given to the medical officers had produced the expected results.
Access to quality care, an important pillar for the population
Dr Bertier Nsadi, President of the National Council of the Order of Physicians (CNOM) and Vice-Chairman of the Educational Committee of Medical Officers in charge of training, said that access to quality healthcare is an important pillar for the population and a duty for doctors. ‘Access to quality care is an important pillar for a better future for the population, and medical officers must intervene to ensure that care is verified and accessible to all sections of the population at the lowest cost with a view to the best possible UHC’, he said. The President of the CNOM stressed the importance of the medical officers who are there to support the DRC in the CSU, given the cost of healthcare in the country’s budget. ‘For this reason, it is imperative that there is constant monitoring of the provision of healthcare at the lowest cost and in an equitable manner, as well as the validation of service protocols and costs’, he argued.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), a medical officer is a health professional, generally attached to a public or private body, responsible for giving a reasoned medical opinion on specific situations submitted to that body, such as work stoppages or disability rates.