• Egypt Collective action anesthetized: The Doctors Syndicate from 2016-2018 | MadaMasr
    https://www.madamasr.com/en/2018/05/23/feature/politics/collective-action-anesthetized-the-doctors-syndicate-from-2016-2018

    Even after the family of one of his patients assaulted him, fracturing his nose in four places, doctor Mohamed Awad is sympathetic to the structural problems that plague Egypt’s healthcare system under the government’s austerity conditions.

    “People come in frightened that their relative will die, but it’s not our fault that there is a shortage in medical supplies. I understand [this fear], but I cannot tolerate attacking doctors,” says Awad.

    The patient whose family attacked Awad came into the Sahel Teaching Hospital on May 18 with a brain hemorrhage and in need of a place in the intensive care unit. Without a bed to offer her, Awad was forced to deliver the news to her family that the unit was at capacity, and that he’d called the Health Ministry to find space for her elsewhere. Angered by the news, the family attacked Awad and three other staff members at the hospital.

    Awad’s story is part of a larger mosaic of repeated attacks on health practitioners. Coupled with stymied reform measures meant to improve professional and patient care conditions, this violence has tried the patience of many of his colleagues and driven a wedge in the politics of the Doctors Syndicate.