Health achievements in Egypt for 2018

By: Gehan Abo ElElla,Yassmin El Sayed

CAIRO, Dec.30 (SEE)_ The health sector in Egypt witnessed a remarkable progress on many fields, which can be listed as follows:

• University Hospitals

The number of university hospitals has increased to 110, an increase by 3%, at a cost of 1.7 billion EGP, and their budgets have also increased to 11.4 billion EGP, an increase by 18%. The capacity of these hospitals has reached to 30 thousand and 24 beds, including 4000 for intensive care and 575 beds for children. All serve 18 million patients, 3 million for critical cases.

The hospitals conduct around 60 thousand special skilled surgeries on annual basis, contributing with 69% at the provision of medical services in Egypt, 75% at advanced medical and critical services, and granted 40 thousand university degrees, as well as thousands of scientific researches annually.

The hospitals, in cooperation with the Ministry of Health and Population, also participated in eliminating the waiting lists by at least 9% as well as participating in the national initiative to eradicate the hepatitis C.

• Achievements of the Ministry of Health:

The President's initiative to eliminate hepatitis C aimed at scanning 50 million citizens, the largest medical scanning in the world. The scanning is being carried out in all the centers across the country, using data of the citizens, and through cooperation between the Ministry and the relevant authorities.

In 2014, the Ministry of Health provided the best medical cure to the hepatitis at the lowest global price. Egyptian companies were also allowed to manufacture the medicine, which was a real shift for this sector.

The Health Minister had previously confirmed that this cure helped to heal one million and 800 thousand patients, which is unprecedented in the world.

• Health Insurance:

The implementation of a compulsory health insurance system has started, and the family, not the inpidual, is its focus. An access to the service would abandon other measures such as the treatment at the expense of the state.

Port-said governorate was selected to initiate the application of the system, which will gradually be extended, to all governorates within the next 15 years.

There is an ongoing process of supplying the hospitals with equipments needed for the new system.

• The shortage problem for medicines and drugs has been eliminated through encouraging local production of medicines of high quality and demand in the domestic and foreign markets. The community has suffered from the shortage of some drugs, especially those treating serious diseases, before the President intervened and directed an increase in the supply of drugs.