Doctors were back protesting on Thursday, a week after their last demonstration outside parliament. This time, however, the demonstration was not about pay and conditions, but in protest at the alleged treatment of a doctor in Hurghada by a district attorney.
According to a statement signed by Doctor Ahmed Hussein Abdel Salam, district attorney Ahmed Hamed Mahmoud stormed into an intensive care unit in the Hurghada Hospital and interrogated a Russian patient of Doctor Mariam Azmy – against the doctor’s instructions.
Mahmoud allegedly responded by inciting a policeman to file a case of slander against the doctor, after which Azmy was summoned by the district attorney and allegedly made to stand for three hours of questioning.
The statement says that Mahmoud verbally insulted Azmy and threatened to order that she be detained with women held on prostitution charges.
The roughly 15 doctors who took part in the protest held up banners reading “We are all Mariam Azmy” and demanded that an inquiry be opened into the incident. They also called for dismissing the head of Hurghada Hospital, who allegedly witnessed the incident and “sat on the district attorney’s couch drinking coffee.”
In their statement, members of the Doctors Without Rights (DWR) movement called for increased security at hospitals to combat what they describe as continuous violent attacks on hospital staff since the revolution.
DWR is calling for three armed army soldiers to be stationed at all hospital entrances and exits and for a maximum of one person to accompany patients inside hospitals.
Hospital security is one of several issues occupying activist doctors in the run-up to the elections, and in the face of what they see as intransigence on key issues by the Doctors Syndicate.
Mona Mina, a DWR spokeswoman, lamented the impossibility of holding syndicate elections under the 1969 law organizing elections. This law dictates that elections must be held between 9 pm and 5 pm, over the course of one day in district syndicate headquarters, which Mina suggests is impossible given that the current number of doctors is estimated at around 150,000.
Mina also suggests that the probity of upcoming elections, scheduled for 14 October 2011, is put in doubt by the absence of procedural guarantees.
Divisions amongst activist doctors have overshadowed campaigning for the elections. Until the 25 January revolution, DWR was the main vehicle for the campaign for better pay and conditions.
Since then, however, another group – the Coalition of Powers Demanding the Rights of Doctors/The Parliament of Doctors – has been formed, and a splinter group with the same name has emerged as well.
Divisions between the groups were apparent most recently when the Coalition announced a strike that was not initially endorsed by DWR.
DWR member Mohamed al-Shafiq said that unlike the Coalition and the splinter group, DWR does not advocate a full strike that would include emergency departments.
“When they are called in for disciplinary action as a result of participation in complete strikes, we find it difficult to defend them on grounds of principle,” he said.
A member of the Coalition who requested anonymity said that there are “ideological differences” between the Coalition and DWR.
“DWR’s ceiling of demands is low and they attempt to realize these demands within the framework of the law, while [coalition members] are young and we try to realize our demands through revolutionary methods such as strikes – even full strikes – and sit-ins and so forth,” the Coalition doctor said.
The Coalition has some 18,745 members on its Facebook page, while the splinter group has 13,321 members. DWR, meanwhile, has 8570 members.
The doctor added that “personal rather than professional differences between doctors” led to the formation of the splinter Coalition.
“We are all, however, in agreement about our goal, which is restoring doctors’ dignity and forming a professional, non-politicized, independent syndicate,” the doctor said.
