Doctors trade blows in operating room

Egyptian prosecutors are investigating two doctors, who were allegedly engaged in a fight in the operating room of a provincial government-run hospital, legal and medical sources said yesterday.

The incident purportedly started as an altercation that soon degenerated into a brawl between a gynaecologist and an anaesthetist at the hospital in Menufia province, some 85 kilometres north of Cairo, after the latter refused to anaesthetise two women who were to undergo Caesarean sections at the same time, the sources said.

The anaesthetist filed a complaint against his colleague, accusing him of assault for turning down a request to work on both cases at the same time in violation of medical regulations. “Regulations ban conducting two Caesarean operations at the same time by the same medical staff for fear of any contingency or complications that may occur during the procedure,” a health official said.

The procedure costs up to 20,000 Egyptian pounds (Dh4,166) at some private hospitals.