Doctors in Egypt struggle to get tested for Covid-19 amid massive increase in infection among them.
With the increasing coronavirus infections among Egyptian medical teams, including doctors and nurses, last week, suddenly a series of consecutive and strange administrative decisions were issued by government officials. However, the consistency of such decisions indicates that they were not made haphazardly, but rather systematically.
The most recent decisions came via a circular issued by the Ministry of Health’s General Administration of Infection Control on 12 May 2020. This circular is disastrous and indicates that the government has decided to sacrifice the medical team in the fight against coronavirus.
Let us now have a look at some samples of these deadly haughty decisions:
1) COVID-19 tests are not allowed for those contacting with a coronavirus positive case, and they are not also to be subjected to quarantine:
This decision is catastrophic. Imagine one of the doctors or nurses contracted the coronavirus for contacting with infected patients, he/she is denied medical examination and COVID-19 tests to make sure that they are free of the disease.
Since he/she is not allowed medical tests or quarantine, a doctor or a nurse continues to operate normally, which simply causes transmission of infection to more patients, colleagues and parents, if it happens to be carrying the virus.
2) The department, facility or hospital in which a COVID-19 positive case is diagnosed shall not be closed
We can understand that a hospital or department is not closed because patients are in need of it, but it should not be run by the same medical staff that mixed patients infected with the virus without being tested to confirm their health condition, because this is a disaster that will cause the virus to be transmitted to patients who enter a hospital void of coronavirus infection.
In addition, the hospital’s routine disinfection, as the decision indicates, is left without explaining any disinfection standards. Unfortunately, there are some hospitals where the cleansing and disinfection are not carried out appropriately or efficiently.
It is ridiculous and miserable at the same time that the official who made such decisions wants to get rid of any responsibility towards the medical staff, including doctors and nurses.
In this regard, the official responsible for controlling infection at the Ministry of Health should be held responsible, punished, and even dismissed from his position for issuance of these irresponsible decisions
However, Egyptian people wonder whether the Minister of Health is aware of such decisions, or is it just a personal behavior by this official?
It is noteworthy that almost all the medical team at the Zahra University Hospital have contracted COVID-19, but the Ministry of Health laboratories refused to complete tests for the rest of staff, informing them that the hospital has become a pandemic area.
