CAIRO — In a rare escalation of events, a police assault on doctors in Cairo’s Matariya hospital in early February provoked the Egyptian Medical Syndicate into holding an emergency general assembly on Feb. 12, which resolved to offer free medical services and close all outpatient clinics in all public hospitals across the nation. The doctors’ union also demanded the referral of Health Minister Dr. Ahmad Imad to the syndicate’s disciplinary committee before revoking his license following a statement in which he claimed that a large number of physicians are not fit for medical practice.
In an interview with Al-Monitor, Dr. Ehab Taher, the syndicate's secretary, said, “The emergency general assembly faced many difficulties to even hold its meeting after many hotels and other venues refused to host the general assembly. This left us with the only option of holding it at the syndicate’s small building on Cairo’s Qasr al-Ayni street.”
