Egyptian authorities have arrested doctors who are speaking out about the deaths of frontline health-care workers!
The healthcare workers complained about a lack of hospital protective gear, criticized the state’s response to the pandemic or reported Covid-19 cases without authorization!
June 30, 2020, Egyptian authorities have arrested at least nine doctors and other medical personnel who are speaking out about the deaths of frontline healthcare workers as the country wrestles with a surge in coronavirus cases and tries to reopen its struggling economy. according to WSJ
Since March, Egyptian security forces have detained the healthcare professionals for complaining about a lack of protective gear in hospitals; criticizing the government’s response to the virus, or reporting coronavirus cases without authorization.
Doctors in Egypt struggle to get tested for Covid-19 amid a massive increase in infection among them.
Last May; Medical sector suddenly faced a series of consecutive and strange administrative decisions were issued by government officials,
These decisions came via a circular issued by the Ministry of Health’s General Administration of Infection Control on 12 May 2020. Doctors described this circular as a disastrous and indicates that the government has decided to sacrifice the medical team in the fight against coronavirus.
The main decisions were:
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!
2) The department, facility or hospital in which a COVID-19 positive case is diagnosed shall not be closed!
The hospital’s routine disinfection, as the decisions indicate, is left without explaining any disinfection standards. Unfortunately, there are some hospitals where the cleansing and disinfection are not carried out appropriately or efficiently.
By the end of May, the number of deaths reached nineteen doctors and more than three hundred and fifty infected among the doctors only.!
May 25, Egypt Medical Syndicate issued a statement accusing the ministry of health of full negligence for its crew, not availing tests kits or PPE!
The syndicate statement said: “Unfortunately, the Ministry of Health has repeatedly failed to do its duty to protect doctors, starting from refraining from early tests to discover any infections among members of the medical staff, to intransigence in carrying out PCR test of those who have been in contact with them for positive cases, to reach even the failure to quickly provide treatment places for those affected by them.”
“As a result of that, the number of deaths reached nineteen doctors, the last of which was the young doctor / Walid Yahya who suffered from COVID-19 until he died, in addition to more than three hundred and fifty infected among the doctors only.”, The statement added.
The Egyptian Prime Minister had stated in a statement that the rise in numbers of COVID-19 deaths was due to the absence and “unpunctuality of some doctors”.
The Egyptian Medical Syndicate on Tuesday decried remarks by Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly who attributed the recent spike in coronavirus deaths in the country to the absence of medical staff.
The statement has triggered furious reactions by doctors and the Egyptian Medical Syndicate (EMS), which argued that the real reason for the spike in cases and fatalities is the shortage of medical equipment and intensive care unit (ICU) beds in the country.
The board of the Egyptian Medical Syndicate has slammed in a statement the comments of the Prime Minister in which he blamed them for “unpunctuality of some doctors” for the rise in the number of deaths in the COVID-19 infected cases”.
