Egypt to hold doctors responsible for covid deaths

Egyptian doctors have protested on social media over a recent announcement by the Ministry of Health to issue records against those allegedly responsible for the “death of coronavirus patients and delays in patient treatments”.

The Secretary-General of the Egyptian Medical Syndicate, Osama Abdel Hay, told local media that the decision was based on a “wrong idea, because it is assumed that the doctor was the one who caused the delay in hospital admissions,” explaining that the doctors were providing the “necessary treatments for all the patients without discrimination.”

A Ministry of Health adviser recently said investigations would be opened into those responsible for what he described as “delays in COVID-19 patients’ admissions to the intensive care units, or of those who died 24 hours after being admitted to hospital.”

Doctors in certain regions of Egypt have warned that they have been forced to turn patients away because of a lack of beds at intensive care units.

READ: Egypt loses 35 doctors in 2 weeks to covid 

Overcrowding in hospitals has had the adverse effect of pushing up the number of infections and the death rate. A contributing factor is the lack of awareness campaigns about preventing transmission.

Since the start of the pandemic, doctors have spoken out about the dilapidated health care system, which is in desperate need of reform, and the lack of PPE.

There was outrage as Egypt sent medical aid to its allies across the globe whilst medics at home had to buy their own masks.

Over the course of the pandemic doctors in Egypt have been arrested and harassed if they speak out about the danger of the covid crisis in the country or question the government’s figures.

Earlier this month, it was reported that more than 500 doctors had died of covid in Egypt, making the ratio of doctors out of the national total of deaths in Egypt six times higher than that in the US.