It’s astonishing how often the government issues laws that go against expectations or even reverse course.
A prime example is the recent law that suddenly decided to imprison doctors instead of protecting them from assaults committed by a minority of citizens who have taken over public hospitals with impunity.
The reality is that professional errors can occur in any medical or non-medical system, and accountability is natural.
However, punishment should not be a hasty resort to imprisonment. Instead, disciplinary and administrative actions should be taken by an independent legal and medical body to determine if a doctor has committed a serious professional error.
The notion that simply increasing or imposing harsher penalties will solve the problem of negligence is a huge misconception.
First, any punishment must be applied fairly to everyone, without favoritism or exception.
Second, the government should be more concerned about the exodus of doctors to foreign countries rather than seeking out punishments to impose on them. Proposals like a resignation fine demonstrate a lack of creativity and a tendency to resort to security measures to prevent migration, instead of gradually working to solve problems within the country.
The government has turned a blind eye to the catastrophic fact that approximately one-third of the doctors registered with the medical syndicate have emigrated from Egypt, not only to European and Gulf countries but even to African nations with lower growth rates.
In 2022, the number of doctors registered with the medical syndicate was 380,000, of which around 120,000 doctors emigrated abroad, a staggering figure compared to any other country.
In the same year, the British labor authorities announced that the number of Egyptian doctors migrating to Britain had increased by 200 percent between 2017 and 2021.
The new law, imprisoning doctors in cases of professional negligence, has ignored all the crises plaguing the healthcare system to focus solely on punishment.
It has failed to address the problems faced by young doctors, such as low salaries, lack of resources, and the absence of protection while working in emergency departments.
Doctors appear to be the ‘scapegoat’ on which all the problems of the healthcare system are blamed.
Sadly, if some officials wish to prove that they’re working for the people and engaging with them to address negligence, they wouldn’t find anyone easier to ‘pick on’ than doctors.
This was exemplified by a governor who mistreated a female doctor for adhering to the rules he had imposed, requiring patients to purchase a ticket before entering the examination room.
The problem with the new law is that it not only harms doctors but also reveals a deep-rooted crisis in the way we think about and address existing problems.
Instead of working to solve the real issues plaguing the healthcare system, this law has only exacerbated them.
About the author:
Amr al-Shobaky is an Egyptian writer, political analyst and managing-editor of Ahwal Masria magazine. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Political Science from Cairo University (1983), a Master’s degree in Political Science from the Institute of Political Studies in France. (1993), and a PhD in Political Science from the Sorbonne University in France (2002).
