Health minister: Refusal to put ‘martyred’ medical staff on same footing as deceased military, police ‘position of political leadership’

Doctors who have died from complications arising from COVID-19 will not be added to the national fund for police and military martyrs, Health Minister Hala Zayed reiterated on Thursday. 

Instead, the health minister announced a plan that came “directly from the president” in which the streets in the new administrative capital — where a newly founded medical risk fund is to be based — are to be named after doctors who have died after contracting the coronavirus. 

Zayed’s comment came at an event hosted by the syndicate to celebrate the anniversary of the institution of Egypt’s first medical school and Egypt’s national doctors day. Presidential Health Advisor Awad Tag Eddin also attended the event, alongside the head of the health affairs committees of both parliamentary chambers and other government officials.

Shortly before the health minister spoke, Doctors Syndicate head Hussein Khairy put forward a longstanding request of the professional association for doctors who have died of COVID-19 to be granted the same material compensation and social recognition that police and military officers who have died during service receive. 

Though Tag Eddin and other officials made comments at the event, Zayed alone commented on compensation for the deceased doctors, reiterating what she called “the position of the political leadership” on the issue. 

The syndicate has lobbied for doctors who died after contracting COVID-19, who now number over 400, to be added to the state fund compensating and honoring deceased military and police officers throughout the duration of the pandemic. The fund pays out a lump sum and monthly pension in compensation to the families of police and military officers who have died in service, whereas the newly established medical risk fund pays out a single lump-sum payment for medical professionals who have died or been injured due to occupational hazards since February 13, 2020, the outset of the pandemic in Egypt.

Khairy began Thursday’s event by inviting attendees to participate in a minute of silence for deceased military, police and medical martyrs. He thanked President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi for sponsoring the event and reiterated the syndicate’s demand for deceased doctors to be added to the state martyrs fund. 

General secretary of the syndicate Osama Abdel Hay also took the podium, saying he was “optimistic” that officials would respond soon to the doctors' demands for inclusion in the military and police fund, as well as to the syndicate’s demand for improved working conditions in order to prevent Egyptian doctors from seeking work abroad. 

Instead, she pointed to amendments to the medical professions law and medical professionals risk fund established by the president in September as sufficient. The September decree established a fund to compensate members of medical teams who have suffered injury, impairment or death as a result of occupational hazard. Zayed told the room of gathered doctors that work is ongoing to regulate the new fund’s resources, stressing that the fund would cater to other medical professionals other than doctors and would pay out compensation for occupational hazards including but not limited to the coronavirus. 

Yet, syndicate treasurer Mohamed Abdel Hamid told Mada Masr in February that doctors are insisting that COVID-19 martyrs get access to the state police and military martyrs fund since it represents a more sustained and comprehensive payment to the families of the deceased.

Abdel Hamid said the martyrs fund ensures monthly pensions are paid out to the families of police and Armed Forces personnel killed, injured or reported as missing as a result of military, militant or security operations. By contrast, the new medical professionals risk fund would only give out a single lump sum in compensation.

Former syndicate board member Mona Mina also told Mada Masr in February that the medical risk fund’s financial resources are more limited than those of the martyrs fund and are only raised through fees and taxes on medical activities. According to Mina, liquidity for the medical risk fund is to be levied via a five percent tax on medical professional licensing, private clinic and hospital licenses, as well as from fees on the salaries of medical professionals.

Finances for the martyrs fund, by contrast, are raised through a wide array of fees imposed on a variety of economic and social activities, ranging from driving and car licenses to government tenders and gun ownership licenses, as well as a recent addition taken from the stipends of sitting MPs.

The 2018 law that established the martyrs fund provided allocations for the beneficiaries that include: scholarships for the duration of their pre-university education, priority in state and private sector employment opportunities, medical treatment in police and Armed Forces-owned hospitals, a 50 percent discount on public transport, free admission at state museums, parks and theaters, as well as residential units in state housing projects.

Since the medical risk fund was established in September, LE16 million has been distributed to the families of 329 medical professionals who died as a result of the coronavirus, according to a statement from the Doctors Syndicate from earlier this month.

In her comments on Thursday, Zayed told the assembled doctors that the board of directors of the medical risk fund would also include two representatives from the families of deceased medical professionals. 

The political leadership “appreciates the heroism and sacrifice” of the doctors confronting the pandemic, she said, which surpasses that of the 1973 Arab-Israeli War.