Egyptian doctors are increasingly at odds with their own government on the country’s coronavirus outbreak, pleading for protections and a full lockdown even as the authorities urge people to learn to “coexist” with Covid-19.
A wave of government propaganda has hailed healthcare workers as the “white army”, a reference to their white coats. But some of them told the Guardian they lacked protective equipment and were struggling to get vital tests for themselves and patients.
“The situation is deteriorating. The nurses and doctors are very scared because we are not protected,” said a nurse at a hospital in Imbaba, Giza. “We are treated the same way patients are treated. If we complain of symptoms, we are asked to go home and quarantine, but we are not allowed to be tested.”
In early May a ministry of health official told a parliamentary committee that quarantine hospitals were full, and doctors complained on social media of having to turn infected people away.
Egypt has registered 14,229 cases of Covid-19 and 680 deaths. Some 745 new cases were recorded on 20 May, the highest one-day total so far. About 13% of those infected are medical professionals, according to the World Health Organization.
“Some doctors say those who had symptoms earlier are much luckier than us, as if you got Covid-19 earlier, you got a hospital place,” said one medical worker at a Giza hospital. “If you get it nowadays, you won’t get a place.”
He blamed the state for the spread of Covid-19, pointing to a profound shortage of protective equipment. “It’s a disaster. Catastrophic,” he said. “Many doctors say they [the government] don’t care about us.”
He deplored the Egyptian government’s boast of supplying PPE to Italy, America and the UK while doctors in Egypt faced shortages. “Things got much worse recently. Doctors working on Covid-19 seeking to get PCR tests [tests to see whether they are infected] for themselves find their requests denied many times.
“Hospitals are collapsing. They have to turn away people who come in with symptoms, but these people have no other options as all places are full.”
Egypt’s health ministry spokesman, Khaled Megahed, was not available when contacted for comment.
The Egyptian Medical Syndicate – a representative body for healthcare workers that is partially state-controlled – has repeatedly demanded that the government change course and demanded more PCR tests.
The syndicate head, Hussein Khairy, and Cairo chapter head Sherine Ghaleb wrote to the prime minister, Mostafa Madbouly, in early May demanding a full lockdown for the last two weeks of the Ramadan holy month to deal a “swift knockout” to the virus, warning of a surge in cases if no further action was taken. The government declined to impose a lockdown, and health committee members stressed the need to protect Egypt’s fragile economy by “coexisting with the virus” while maintaining social distancing measures.
Officials imposed a nighttime curfew in late March, then it reduced it by two hours at the end of April. Shopping malls, banks and mass transit systems stayed open even as case numbers grew. Government officials have declared a new 5pm to 6am curfew during the upcoming six-day Eid al-Fitr break, including the temporary closure of shops and beaches.
While health ministry and cabinet officials have repeatedly spoken of the need to “coexist” with the virus, Madbouly has declared that the country will “return to normal” after the Eid holiday. Citizens must wear face masks in public, he said, but the government will now consider reopening restaurants, gyms and places of worship.
Multiple Egyptian officials have blamed citizens for the spread of the virus despite the lax restrictions, including the head of the cabinet’s crisis management unit, who lamented the “lack of commitment from some citizens”.
The country has 1.6 hospital beds per 1,000 people, and recently accepted a $2.8bn loan from the International Monetary Fund to aid an economy where a third of citizens live below the poverty line, unable to abstain from daily low-paid work.
The rise in cases has been accompanied by confusion about the number of PCR tests conducted in Egypt, which in late April was using less than half its testing capacity according to the WHO, which implored Egypt to scale up its efforts.
An Egyptian presidential adviser for health claimed in early May that the country had conducted “over a million” tests, a figure later retracted by the State Information Service, which said “more than 105,000 tests” had been carried out. The British embassy in Cairo announced this week that Southampton company Primer Design provided 40,000 PCR test kits to Egypt, while the health ministry said 320 additional public hospitals would be able to test for and examine suspected cases.
“We do not want to be called the ‘white army’,” said a doctor at the Hussein University hospital in Cairo. “We want the same social protection and financial rights that the army and officials have. Believe me, doctors do not want songs or titles – we just want to be able to do our job safely.”