Egypt’s health sector in the shadow of devaluation: All roads lead to ruin | MadaMasr
▻http://www.madamasr.com/en/2017/03/24/feature/politics/egypts-health-sector-in-the-shadow-of-devaluation-all-roads-lead-to-ruin
“After the Egyptian pound was floated, we had to make a choice: either increase the price of medicine or no longer provide it. We always face terrible choices,” says Mona Mina, the secretary general of the Doctors Syndicate.
Sitting in her office at the Doctors Syndicate’s headquarters next to a desk scattered with documents that trace her many commitments and the scope of the syndicate’s work, Mina reflects on the government’s decision to raise the price of 2,010 pharmaceutical products after the November decision to liberalize the foreign exchange rate. Of the drugs included in the adjustment, 619 are used to treat chronic diseases. Parliamentary sources indicated at the beginning of March that the government’s legislation to introduce universal healthcare will not be referred to the House of Representatives before June.