Health Ministry downplays strikes, dismisses demands

The Doctors Syndicate launched its sixth day of strike action this month, and the Pharmacists Syndicate joined in their partial work stoppage at public hospitals and the Health Ministry’s medical facilities on Wednesday.

Spokespersons from these medical professionals claim their partial strikes – which exclude work stoppages in emergency rooms, intensive care units, nurseries, and for urgent surgeries – was heeded by over 45 percent of their members in the majority (around 85 percent) of public hospitals and the Health Ministry’s pharmacies.

On the other hand, the Health Ministry downplayed the strike, claiming that no more than 18 percent of doctors and pharmacists participated in this strike.

According to Health Ministry Spokesman Hisham Atta, only 93 public hospitals from a total of 513 witnessed strike action on Wednesday. Atta added there were nine governorates which entirely boycotted these strike calls.

The Doctors Syndicate dismissed these figures and claimed the Health Ministry had skewed and distorted the real image of the strike.

Furthermore, the Health Ministry is in the process of referring Ahmed Shawqi, a board member of the Cairo Doctors Branch Syndicate, to the public prosecution on charges of instigating strikes at Cairo hospitals.

Egypt’s medical syndicates – doctors, pharmacists, veterinarians – have launched a string of strikes since the beginning of this year for demands that include increased salaries and safer working conditions, an incremental pay-scale, compensation for infectious illnesses contracted at public health facilities, and a larger allocation for healthcare expenditures in the national budget, amongst other demands.  

Additional tensions had surfaced between the two sides during a press conference at the headquarters of the Doctors Syndicate on Tuesday. Despite being invited to attend, representatives of the Health Ministry declined to partake in both this conference, and in the investigation into the unresolved deaths and illnesses of several physicians.

The syndicate has been calling on the ministry to establish a specialized fact-finding committee to investigate the causes behind the recent deaths of four doctors, who are said to have died after contracting fatal respiratory illnesses from patients at public hospitals. Several other doctors have fallen ill from similar unidentified illnesses.

Representatives of the Health Ministry and the World Health Organization have dismissed claims that the doctors’ deaths are attributed to Swine Flu, or the H1NI virus.

The Health Ministry has confirmed, however, that at least 182 people in Egypt have been infected with the H1NI virus, with at least 52 fatalities reported thus far.