Pandemic further strains Egypt's dilapidated health system
Egypt's health practitioners say protective gear shortages are putting them at risk during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Public service announcements on Egyptian TV pay tribute to Egypt's so-called White Army of nurses and doctors, hailing them as heroes. But the medical personnel on the front lines in Egypt's fight against the COVID-19 pandemic are speaking out against negligence in public hospitals and how the health system is ill-prepared to deal with the coronavirus. They lament the lack of testing and say a shortage in medical supplies and protective gear is endangering their lives and their families' lives.
On social media, some health practitioners have accused hospital administrators and the authorities of covering up the extent of the outbreak to prevent public panic.
Cairo University announced the closure April 4 of its National Cancer Institute (NCI), the country's main cancer hospital, after 15 members of the hospital's medical staff tested positive for the coronavirus. In a live telephone interview on the Saudi-owned satellite channel MBC Masr, NCI Director Hatem Abul Qassem told TV presenter Amr Adib that a week earlier a nurse had tested positive for the coronavirus and that he had infected several of his colleagues. The nurse, who works in another private hospital, may have also infected patients there, he suggested. Abul Qassem said that all 40 members of the NCI medical staff — including those who had not shown any symptoms of the coronavirus — had been tested and 15 of them (12 nurses and three doctors) tested positive for the coronavirus.
"They have since been isolated and the hospital has been sterilized," he said. "Only the outpatient clinic remains open."
