Egyptian health care workers face harassment
The burial of an Egyptian doctor who died from coronavirus disease (COVID-19) was delayed by residents trying to prevent her funeral from taking place in the village’s cemetery, fearing the spread of the virus, her son has told Arab News. Security forces managed to disperse angry crowds in the village in Dakahlia governorate, north of Cairo, before the doctor, Sonia Abdel-Azim, was buried.
The incident reflects a worrying trend of some Egyptians changing their perception of doctors, from heroes to carriers of the virus. Dr. Ahmed Al-Hindawi, Abdel-Azim’s son, told Arab News that a mob had gathered around the road leading to the gravesite to prevent the ambulance from reaching the cemetery.
There have been other incidents of hostility toward health workers in
Egypt since the outbreak.
Dr. Dina Magdy, who works in Ismailia’s Fever Hospital, had to move to a new residence, which was relatively isolated, as a precaution.
Even so, crowds demanded she be kicked out of her house, claiming she was infected with the coronavirus.
Magdy said she was harassed by residents who accused her of transmitting the disease to them. On Friday the people of Bolus village in Kafr El-Dawwar, Beheira governorate, refused to bury the mother of a doctor who died from the coronavirus after contracting the disease from her son. Security forces had to intervene.
In another incident, a nurse at Al-Sadr Hospital, also in Dakahlia, was bullied after she became infected. She said she cried when her phone number and those of her colleagues were posted on social media. “We are sick and in agony, and suffering from a bad psychological state,” the nurse said in a video circulated among Facebook users. “People are supposed to thank and appreciate doctors fighting the coronavirus because they are risking their lives on a regular basis,” a chest disease consultant and president of the Egyptian Society for Allergy and Immunology, Dr. Nabil Al-Dabaraki, told Arab News. Al-Dabaraki said different cultures and the low level of awareness among some people could be blamed for the harassment doctors were facing.
HIGHLIGHT
By Saturday, Egypt had registered 1,939 COVID-19 cases and 146 deaths.