Minister of Health: Doctors Sacrifice Lives due to Corona Pandemic

Dr. Hala Zayed, Minister of Health and Population, paid tribute to the medical staff, praising their role.

The minister stressed the necessity of issuing the draft law submitted by the government to amend some provisions of the law regulating the affairs of members of the medical professions working in the bodies affiliated to the Ministry of Health and Population who are not addressed to special laws or regulations issued by Resolution No. 14 of 2014.

The minister said during a re-discussion of some of the articles of the bill that the law comes at an important time as medical personnel have given lives because of responding to the pandemic that affected the lives of health sector workers.

Regarding the proposal submitted by Representative Ehab Mansour on amending the first article, the Minister of Health said, "We can amend the first article at a later time after agreeing on it from all parties in agreement with the Minister of Finance and medical professionals."

Secretary of the HoR began voting by name-calling on the draft law submitted by the government to amend some provisions of the law regulating the affairs of members of the medical professions working in the bodies affiliated with the Ministry of Health and Population who are not addressed by special laws or regulations issued by Resolution No. 14 of 2014.

The law includes the establishment of a fund to compensate for the risks of medical professionals, nine other draft laws submitted by deputies and more than a tenth of the number of council members in the same subject.

On the other hand, the Health Affairs Committee of the House of Representatives (HoR) during its meeting today approved the increase of allowance for medical professions risks.

Today sitting was headed by Representative Essam Al-Qadi, deputy-chair of the committee.

Over its meeting, lawmakers discussed a draft law submitted by the government to amend some provisions of the law regulating the affairs of members of the medical professions working in the bodies affiliated with the Ministry of Health and Population.

The draft doesn't include the addressees of special laws and regulations comes under Resolution No. 14 of 2014.

It extends the tenure of medical members and establishes a compensation fund for them to cope with profession risks.

This comes in responding to decisions of President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi to support the medical crews, as a sign of appreciation of their role and efforts as the first line of defense in the face of the Coronavirus crisis.

The committee renamed the so-called allowance for the medical professions to become "allowance for medical professions risk" instead of "allowance for infection risks" which came in the text of the draft law presented by the government.

The committee approved the allowance categories as stated in the draft law as follows:

EGP 1225 pounds for doctors, EGP 875 pounds for dentists, pharmacists, veterinarians, and EGP physiotherapists, 790 for nursing professionals, chemists, and physicists, and 700 pounds for technical diplomas for nursing technicians and health technicians.

Representative Ayman Abu El-Ela, a member of the Health Committee, suggested equality between the allowance of physicians and pharmacists.

Ahmed Saeed, representative of the Ministry of Finance, rejected the proposal as a result of the matter being linked to certain categories with the original law, and an increase of about 75% was added to each category and thus the amendment of the categories.

He also stuck to the same allowance that came with the government bill, Allowance for the risks of infection.

He indicated that changing the name has certain legal consequences, especially that some doctors have filed lawsuits with court regarding the infection allowance and won them.

This proposal was rejected by the Health Committee and voted in favor of changing the name for Medical professionals' risks

Representative Abdel-Fattah Mohamed, Secretary of the Workforce Committee, demanded to include the allowances of the medical professions, the category of hospital workers, as they exposed to the same risks.