The Doctors' Syndicate is earnestly lobbying for its emergency public assembly next Friday to discuss recent incidents of alleged assaults by police on its members, ensuring transportation for participants from the country’s provinces to Cairo.
“Buses have been devoted across provinces to lobby doctors for attending the assembly, especially with anger high among them of what has been going on,” Eihab al-Taher, general secretary of the syndicate, told Al-Masry Al-Youm.
“The assembly will be unprecedented, so, we hope investigators are taking urgent measures before it is held,” said Taher.
Anger has spread through the medical community over a reported physical assault by a police officer on doctors at Cairo’s Matariya Teaching Hospital. The wounded police officer reportedly was angered when doctors told him his injury was “superficial”, which he interpreted as a lack of care for his condition. The incident prompted a strike by doctors at the hospital backed by the syndicate.
In a separate incident, doctors at Banha University Hospital also suspended work after a man who claimed to be a police officer beat doctors for not giving enough attention to his sick wife.
"The syndicate’s board received news that prosecutors had summoned the police officers for interrogation, but it has no information on whether charges were actually filed,” Taher told Al-Masry Al-Youm, commenting on the Matariya Hospital incident.
He said escalation by the syndicate could involve protests, hunger strikes, collective resignations and partial strikes at hospitals across the republic.
Representatives from the lawyers, journalists and engineers syndicates are expected at the meeting, Taher added.
Edited translation from Al-Masry Al-Youm
