Tunis to host AI and healthcare summit as public health system strains

Tunis will host the first edition of The Bridge AI and Healthcare Summit on Monday 8 June, a one day event at the Radisson Blu Hotel and Convention Center bringing together entrepreneurs, startups, investors, doctors and Tunisian professionals working abroad around health technology and medical innovation.

The organisers expect between 400 and 600 participants from Tunisia and overseas, including investment funds, financial institutions, universities and public and private sector representatives. The summit is co-organised by the National Organisation of Entrepreneurs, known as ONE, and the Association of Tunisian Doctors Worldwide, the AMTM. It marks the official launch of The Bridge, an incubator and accelerator that the organisers describe as the first to link Tunisia and Europe in healthcare, artificial intelligence and new technologies.

The programme runs from 08:30 to 18:30 and includes conferences, sector panels, pitch competitions, business meetings and a startup village gathering dozens of young Tunisian and African companies, alongside a health technology exhibition. The themes on the agenda include artificial intelligence applied to medicine, telemedicine, medical technology and biotechnology, alternative financing and crowdfunding, and the role of Tunisian talent abroad. The stated ambition is to position Tunisia as a regional hub connecting Europe and Africa in the sector.

The summit opens at a difficult moment for the system it aims to modernise. In May, the Tunisian Organisation of Young Doctors, the OTJM, was caught in a public confrontation with the authorities. The General Secretariat of the Presidency of the Government froze the organisation's activities for thirty days on 14 May, a step that forced the cancellation of a press conference the group had planned for the following day to present a study on the state of public health, including violence against medical staff and security gaps in hospitals. The suspension was lifted on 19 May after negotiations with the Health Ministry, and the organisation held its press conference on 22 May. Its president is Wajih Dhokkar.

The departure of doctors is the deeper pressure. According to the Tunisian Medical Council, more than 6,000 practitioners left the country between 2021 and 2025, with around 1,300 leaving in 2024, more than 1,400 in 2025 and an estimated 1,600 expected in 2026. France is the main destination, drawing on long linguistic and historical ties. Tunisia counted roughly 1.3 doctors per 1,000 people in 2023, below the threshold the World Health Organization sets for meeting a population's basic needs.

Medicine supply has been the other recurring strain. In January, the secretary general of the Pharmacists' Council, Dr Thouraya Ennaifer, said private pharmacies were short of several vital medicines, among them treatments for thyroid conditions, bipolar disorder and attention disorders, as well as painkillers for cancer patients such as morphine. Most of those medicines are imported and have no local generic equivalent.

It is against that backdrop that the summit sets out its vocabulary of artificial intelligence, digital health and medical startups. Supporters of digital health point to its practical uses in appointment systems, medical imaging, hospital logistics, patient records, disease surveillance and remote expertise for doctors in underserved regions.

Among the groups the organisers most want in the room are Tunisian doctors working abroad, presented as a network for investment, mentoring and cooperation. They are also the pool the country has been losing at a rate of more than a thousand a year. The first edition of The Bridge runs for a single day on 8 June, and its organisers will be judged on whether the connections made in the hall reach the wards beyond it.