Member of Parliament (MP) Samira al-Gazar, directed a briefing request to both the Prime Minister, Mostafa Madbouly, and the Minister of Health and Population Khaled Abdel Ghaffar, regarding the serious and evident neglect suffered by the health sector as indicted 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 cases of kidney failure compared to global rates.
According to a report by the Egyptian Society of Nephrology and Kidney Transplantation, the rate of those in need of dialysis reaches 650 cases per million – more than double the global rate.
The MP added that, “In the presence of disease, there is no medicine, as is currently the case. Hospitals in many governorates, especially in Upper Egypt, Siwa Oasis, and rural centers, still suffer from a lack of medicines and medical supplies, a shortage of blood bags of all types, a lack of medical staff and modern equipment, and a shortage of beds, especially in intensive care, intermediate care, dialysis units, and emergency departments.”
She explained that “diabetes patients in Egypt have recently suffered from a catastrophic shortage of insulin, which causes 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 not taking a substitute or the unavailability of Mixtard, as well as the unavailability of cancer drugs, which leads to a deterioration in the health condition 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 treatment from outside the hospital, a lack of cleanliness inside hospitals, and neglect of the public sector, and some places have become inhumane.”
“Why doesn’t the Minister of Health visit these hospitals to see the situation? As for private hospitals, they have turned into a mafia whose goal is profit before saving the lives of patients, who suffer from exorbitant price increases, starting from getting a box of medicine or undergoing surgery… Why doesn’t the ministry monitor the hospital mafia?”, she asked.
She went on saying, “And due to the state’s reliance on importing medical supplies, and after the dollar crisis, the Drug Authority refused to manufacture and sell at low prices except after the state provided the active ingredient that it brings from abroad in millions of dollars. Based on this, why is there no plan to manufacture the active ingredient for many of the drugs that we need to import? In the event of a dollar crisis, the patient faces the specter of death, while the local drug was not as effective as the imported drug.”
“So what is the reason and how will this crisis be solved?”
The MP made a number of demands, including:
- Developing an urgent plan to manufacture active ingredients in Egypt with the same quality as abroad to save patients after their life became tied to the availability of the dollar.
- Ensure the availability of all missing medications in the market, especially diabetes medications, after many patients have entered comas.
- Develop the public healthcare sector and enforce stricter regulations on hospital hygiene, ensuring that animals, such as cats (as seen in images near the ICU of a government hospital), are kept out.
- Equip all hospitals in the capital and governorates with dialysis units.
- Address the shortage of intensive care unit beds in remote areas like Siwa Oasis.
- Implement a price cap for 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 its accompanying requests, be referred to the parliamentary health committee for public discussion.
Edited translation from Al-Masry Al-Youm
