Some perspective:
"If you were admitted to hospital tomorrow in any country... your chances of being subjected to an error in your care would be something like 1 in 10. Your chances of dying due to an error in health care would be 1 in 300," Liam Donaldson, the WHO's newly appointed envoy for patient safety, told a news briefing.
This compared with a risk of dying in an air crash of about 1 in 10 million passengers, according to Donaldson, formerly England's chief medical officer.
Source:
Going into hospital far riskier than flying: WHO | Reuters
So while flying in africa is more dangerous than elsewhere, it is still much safer than going to a hospital. Then again, hospitals in africa are also much more scary than hospitals in developed countries
Of course I don't mean that we should accept the current african aviation safety as "acceptable risk". Often complacency is as dangerous than incompetence. I've seen too many people who skip procedures because they believe that know what they are doing. Why bother circling the strip when "everyone knows" that our Antonov is approaching around this time? etc.
ps. also from the same text:
About 100,000 hospitals worldwide now use the WHO's surgical safety checklist, which the agency said has been shown to reduce surgery complications by 33 percent and deaths by 50 percent.
Borrowing procedures from aviation they seem...
Safe landings (and safe drive to hotel!).