MP calls for urgent reforms for Egypt’s healthcare crisis

Member of Parliament (MP) Samira al-Gazar, addressed a briefing request to both the Prime Minister, Mostafa Madbouly, and the Minister of Health and Population Khaled Abdel Ghaffar, on the serious and obvious neglect suffered by the healthcare sector, as indicated by statistical data.

Statistics show that Egypt is among the top 10 countries in the world with the highest prevalence of diabetes and a significant increase in the number of kidney failure cases compared to global figures.

According to a report by the Egyptian Society of Nephrology and Kidney Transplantation, the number of people requiring dialysis is 650 cases per million – more than double the global figure.

The MP added: “In case of illness there is no medicine, as is currently the case. Hospitals in many governorates, especially in Upper Egypt, the Siwa Oasis and rural centers, continue to suffer from a lack of medicines and medical supplies, a shortage of all kinds of blood bags, a lack of medical staff and modern equipment, and a shortage of medical devices. beds, especially in intensive care, intermediate care, dialysis units and emergency departments.”

She explained that “diabetes patients in Egypt have recently suffered from catastrophic insulin deficiency, causing a diabetic coma. We all know that there is a shortage of insulin, especially Mixtard 70/30 insulin. In the emergency departments of many hospitals, we see many cases due to the failure to take a substitute or the unavailability of Mixtard, as well as the unavailability of anticancer drugs, which leads to a deterioration in the health status of patients and death.

Al-Gazar stated that “public and specialized hospitals suffer from a shortage of doctors, a shortage of beds, the need to purchase treatments from outside the hospital, a lack of hygiene within hospitals and neglect of the public sector. become inhuman.”

“Why doesn’t the Minister of Health visit these hospitals to review the situation? As for the private hospitals, they have turned into a mafia whose goal is profit before saving the lives of patients, who suffer from exorbitant price hikes starting from getting a box of medicine or undergoing surgery… Why does it hold Ministry does not notice the hospital mafia? ?” she asked.

She went on to say: “And because of the state’s dependence on importing medical supplies, and after the dollar crisis, the Drug Authority refused to produce and sell at low prices unless the state supplied the active ingredient that made it in millions of dollars from abroad. dollars. Based on this, why is there no plan to produce the active ingredient for many of the medicines we have to import? In the event of a dollar crisis, the patient faces the specter of death, while the local medicine was not as effective as the imported medicine.”

“So what is the reason and how will this crisis be resolved?”

The MP made a number of demands, including:

• Developing an urgent plan to produce active ingredients in Egypt with the same quality as abroad, to save patients after their lives became dependent on the availability of the dollar.
• Ensure that all missing drugs are available in the market, especially diabetes drugs, after many patients fall into coma.
• Develop the public health sector and enforce stricter hospital hygiene rules, ensuring that animals, such as cats (as seen in footage at a government hospital ICU), are kept outdoors.
• Equip all hospitals in the capital and governorates with dialysis units.
• Addressing the shortage of intensive care beds in remote areas such as Siwa Oasis.
• Introduce a price cap on surgical procedures in all Egyptian public sector hospitals and crack down on the ‘business mafia’ that exploits patients.
• Find a solution to stabilize or reduce drug prices and prevent further increases.

Al-Gazar requested that the briefing, along with associated requests, be referred to the parliamentary health committee for public discussion.

Edited translation of Al-Masry Al-Youm