Poor services in Egypt public hospitals come to light
The decision of Egyptian Prime Minister Ibrahim Mehleb to transfer negligent physicians from hospitals in Cairo governorates to Upper Egypt has raised the ire of the public, which demands hospital reform.
CAIRO — Egyptian Prime Minister Ibrahim Mehleb paid a June 6 visit to the National Heart Institute and Theodor Bilharz Research Institute, both located in Giza governorate. Following the visits, Mehleb transferred a group of physicians from Giza to the Upper Egypt governorates, including Sohag, Qena and Luxor.
Soon after the prime minister's visits, an extensive mobilization campaign erupted on social networking sites. A Facebook page — the name of which translates as “So that he will not be surprised when he visits" — was set up June 7 to shed light on the poor conditions in public hospitals.
Some 48 hours after the page was created, visits to it skyrocketed. A large number of doctors and citizens got involved and uploaded hundreds of pictures of different hospitals, including ones of snakes and owls at the Mattay Central Hospital in El Menia district. Other photos showed goats and sheep at the entrance to a clinic in Mina al-Basal in Alexandria. Roughly 170,000 doctors are participating in the campaign, taking pictures at hospitals and showing them to the public to promote reform for the health care system.
Social media has quickly become a critical tool to publicize the smallest government neglect. The page’s popularity led to the creation of similar pages to show the deteriorating situation in other sectors, such as education, culture, governorate services, electricity, agriculture and sanitation, as well as police practices and living conditions in the slums.
