New law seeks to punish doctors for poor treatment
Publish date: 03 February 2025
Issue Number: 1111
Diary: IBA Legalbrief Africa
Category: Egypt
Egypt could face a doctor exodus over a draft medical malpractice law that intends to address patients’ complaints about poor treatment by imposing punitive measures, including fines and the detention of doctors who give substandard care. However, medical professionals say the real issue is underfunding and inefficiency in Egypt’s healthcare system and that the malpractice law could harm an already strained system by driving doctors abroad or out of the profession, reprorts The Independent. ‘The quality of Egypt’s healthcare system has been declining over decades,’ said Hisham Ezzat, an anesthesiologist practising in Germany. ‘Many Egyptian hospitals lack the tools and equipment deemed necessary abroad, so doctors are trained to work with whatever they have to save their patients.’ Public hospitals often operate on shoestring budgets, with doctors reporting out-of-pocket payments for essential supplies like gloves and sutures. Rather than improving matters, ‘the new law in this current form will establish a rivalry between doctors and patients instead of trying to build trust between them,’ said a source at the Egyptian Medical Syndicate, the main doctors’ association. Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly said the draft malpractice law, which lawmakers are to vote on within weeks, aims to balance the rights of doctors and patients and address long-standing grievances. Egyptian doctors are currently prosecuted under the penal code, which is a blunt instrument when it comes to medical errors, the Health Ministry’s spokesperson, Hossam Abdel Ghaffar, said. ‘This law seeks to change that by establishing a new legislation focused on the doctor-patient relationship... It will improve the healthcare system, improve the practising environment, and keep doctors in the country.’