The tragedy of a pregnant woman whose baby died after she was forced to give birth outside the doors of a public hospital because she could not afford a small admission fee has outraged people in Egypt, where one-third of the 104 million population lives below the poverty line.

Egyptian doctors are resigning en masse from the nation’s government-run health system, highlighting the growing discontent with chronically low salaries and underfunded hospitals.

The statistics revealed by the Egyptian Medical Syndicate regarding the resignations of 4,621 doctors over the past year due to low wages and poor working conditions have sparked widespread controversy in Egypt.

An Egyptian political detainee, Jihad Abdel-Ghani, has died of jaw and throat cancer in the medical centre at the Badr prison, Ikhwan Online reported yesterday.

As many as 18 doctors have died in Egypt due to long working hours and exhaustion this year, the Egyptian Medical Syndicate has said.

The main children’s cancer hospital in Tanta, a city in the Nile Delta nearly 100km north of the Egyptian capital Cairo, is set to close its doors for good.

Maryam Hussain is a doctor in the Coronavirus Diagnostic Department at Ain Shams General Hospital where she has spent five months trying to get the vaccine against the Coronavirus.

Some locally-made doses of the Sinovac COVID-19 vaccine used in door-knocking campaigns in Cairo have been expired for as long as two months, two doctors involved in the campaign told Mada Masr.

The health sector in Egypt is at risk of collapse due to the unprecedented migration wave of Egyptian doctors, according to a report published by the Al-Quds Al-Arabi newspaper.

Egypt prosecuted 17 journalists and media staff on charges of spreading fake news about the management of the Covid-19 pandemic by Egyptian authorities, the Arab Media Freedom Monitor – an Egyptian civil society organisation – said on Saturday.