Military prosecution investigates officer involved in assault on Monufiya hospital staff

A nurse was beaten, kicked and dragged on the floor by a group of people including an air force pilot escorting his pregnant wife to seek medical attention for severe bleeding, the nurse told Mada Masr, in an incident of group assault on at least nine members of staff last week at Quwisna Central Hospital in Monufiya. “The husband, an officer, intervened, slapping and kicking me. I fell to the floor and he continued to kick at me, bruising my entire body,” said Nouran Mansour. “One of them came to us with a whip, while the others had metal chains, which they hit us with.” 

The incident, footage of which went viral on social media, drew national attention to the issue of violence toward medical and healthcare staff, a phenomenon that professional syndicates have long sought to bring to the attention of lawmakers and the government.

 The Public Prosecution announced two days later that it was conducting an investigation into the incident, and that the military office would question the officer involved. 

But concerns that the military rank of one of the aggressors could compromise settlements and fair consequences for the assault were expressed by hospital staff and commentators on social media in the immediate aftermath of the assault.

“A police officer arrived accompanied by the hospital security guard at the scene,” said Mansour. “As soon as [the police officer] knew a fighter pilot was involved, he left without filing a report.” Another of the assaulted nurses recounted to Mada Masr that the police were summoned later at the end of the incident and escorted the pilot and his entourage out of the hospital without filing a report or placing any of them under arrest, saying, “He's an army officer , we have no authority over him.” 

Hospital management initially discouraged nurses from filing reports to authorities about the incident, said Mansour, likewise citing the officer's military affiliation. Ultimately though, she said, management backtracked and filed a complaint in the hospital's name, while those assaulted filed nine individual complaints. According to Mansour, the officer's wife first presented at Quwisna Central Hospital with a severe bleed in her first trimester. “At the time,” said Mansour, “the attending obstetrician was in surgery. We informed him of the patient’s symptoms and he requested an ultrasound and some blood tests until he could attend to her.”

While the patient was undergoing the tests, the obstetrician completed the surgery and came to inquire about the patient before returning to hospital staff accommodation. Mansour related that she called the doctor to request that he return, when one of the patient's female relatives seized the phone from her hand. When I tried to take the phone back from her, she pushed me, so I pushed her back. Another nurse tried to intervene but the husband's brother pushed her so hard she fell to the floor as he yelled at us to 'do our jobs.'” 

The obstetrician attended to the patient and an IV drip was administered, said Mansour, after which hospital security arrived accompanied by a policeman who ultimately refused to intervene citing the officer's rank. After the police officer left, the nursing supervisor at the hospital arrived to inquire about the altercation, according to Mansour. The relative who had snatched the phone from Mansour slapped the supervisor on her face, claiming that nursing staff were not doing their jobs properly. 

After the supervisor was slapped, Mansour said, it escalated into a scuffle, with four nurses, four female hospital workers, and one of the hospital security guards exchanging blows with the patient's entourage. It was at this point that the fighter pilot joined the fray, said Mansour.

According to the other nurse who was assaulted, who spoke to Mada Masr on condition of anonymity, “staff at the hospital managed to record the incident on their phones.” She noted that the officer's brother and their relatives also assaulted staff members recording the incident, managing to snatch some of their phones to delete the images and recordings. 

Footage of the assault went viral on social media, where users alleged the officer's name is Mostafa al-Sed al-Aaly, as well as his brother and various family members. Shortly afterward, Kawthar Mahmoud, head of the Egyptian Nurses Syndicate, demanded a swift investigation into the incident, asking authorities to take appropriate legal action against the perpetrator. Health Minister Khaled Abdel Ghaffar announced on Friday that he was following up on the incident and had requested that the hospital file an official report to uphold the rights of nursing staff and the right of the state on account of the damages incurred by the hospital as a result of the attack.

During a visit to the hospital on Saturday, Abdel Ghaffar stated, “the state protects the rights of its sons and will not allow anyone to undermine the dignity of medical responders,” referring to the medical responsibility bill currently being reviewed by Parliament, a piece of legislation that seeks clearly to define parameters for the interactions and relationship between patients and medical service providers. 

Meanwhile, an investigation is ongoing into “the assault by a patient's family on nurses, workers and a member of the security personnel at Quwisna Central Hospital, the Public Prosecution said in a Monday statement , noting that an officer is among the defendants. The military prosecution will be responsible for investigating the officer who said the statement, while the Public Prosecution will question the rest of the accused. Backup footage of the incident was retrieved, the office added, after surveillance equipment was damaged during the events. 

The Egyptian Armed Forces also released a statement on Friday noting that it was following the incident closely and urging the public to refrain from sharing accurate information and to wait for the investigation results.