CAIRO: At a press conference Tuesday, the Supreme Committee overseeing the doctors' strike announced the success of the open strike doctors entered, with a large percentage participating; more than the first partial strike on May 10. The committee stated that some governorates that did not join the strike the first time participated in this one, while some hospitals recorded a larger percentage of supporters this time around and in a number of governorates even reached 100 percent. Mohamed Shafeeq of the Supreme Committee announced the official results of the first day of the open strike. He stated that the strike in Cairo reached 75 percent, while the different Egyptian provinces ranged between 85 and 90 percent. Yet, the governorates of Port Said, Suez and Ismailia, entered the strike with 100 percent of participation. Around 227 hospitals joined the strike. The committee claimed that some doctors participating in the strike faced threats by the administration of the hospitals, including 6 months suspension if they joined the strike. Doctors in the committee overseeing the strike harshly criticized Minister of Health Ashraf Hatem, saying that although he tried to “look good” by describing the May 10 strike as “a civilized one,” this time the ministry reportedly sent faxes to the doctors threatening them by the “thugs' law and the new penal code ratified March 2011.” “We are entering this strike today in favor of the patients and will not harm them,” said the committee. Mona Mina, coordinator of the group Doctors Without Rights also claimed that doctors faced various forms of deception to ban them from entering the strike. “Different rumors were spread among doctors that our demands were met and the strike was canceled, which were totally untrue. Yet, doctors proved that they are fully aware of such games. Their awareness gave us hope that Egypt is entering a new phase that has a respectable health care system,” she said. Mina asserted that the open strike is on except for emergency rooms, receptions, critical care cases, urgent operations, nurseries, dialysis and chemotherapy. “We are trying to make our voices heard without pressuring the patients and if any violations to the rules of the strike happened from doctors we encourage patients to send us a complaint so that we can correct the situation,” Mina told reporters. She said the committee was expected to hold a meeting late Tuesday with Prime Minister Essam Sharaf and Minister of Finance Samir Radwan to discuss the demands of the doctors. “We want to know if the health of the Egyptian citizen is a priority for the government or not,” she said. Mina threatened that if the demands of the open strike were not met, the doctors would submit collective resignations or organize a million man march on Cairo's Tahrir square for better medical services for the patient. The doctors' demands were briefed in four main points, including the resignation of the health minister, securing hospitals from the attacks of thugs, a fair system of wages and raising the general budget of health care in the country. The strike was approved by an extraordinary General Assembly of the Doctors' Syndicate and opposed by the Head of the Syndicate, whose presidency has been frozen. “The syndicate's board froze the presidency of Hamdy el-Said from the syndicate, so we don't know why some media still insists to publish his statements as facts. If a frozen person still has an opinion in the current events, so why don't we take former President Hosni Mubarak's opinion in the current events of Egypt?” doctors wondered. BM
