The Canada Egypt Business Council hosted a special dinner in the Four Seasons Hotel featuring Egypt’s Minister of Health Dr. Hatem El-Gabaly who discussed the topic, “Egypt and the World; between the Economic and Health Crises”.

The event started by discussing the confusion that occurred in the health sector earlier this year especially with the global prevalence of the swine flu.
Addressing more than 250 CEBC members, prominent ministers, and distinguished guests, the CEBC Chairman, Mr. Motaz Raslan took the podium to discuss the probable impact of the current health outbreak on the global economy. He also pointed out that while global economies were fighting for recovery, another predicament rose on the surface, which is the massive spread of the swine flu virus in more than 74 countries around the world including Egypt, leading to a threat of becoming a global epidemic. “This is besides the spread of the plague on the western boarders of the country”, Mr. Raslan said.
He also added that if such a pandemic grew further, it would have a devastating force on the public health especially after the World Health Organization lifted the degree of preparedness to deal with the threat of the H1N1 virus from the fifth to the sixth place.
Mr. Raslan went on explaining the hammering impacts of this virus on global economies, based on recent estimates from the World Bank that forecasts the swine flu to cost the global economies more than three trillion U.S. dollars.
He also argued that while the Ministry of Health is responsible for the treatment of these diseases, many of the other ministries in the government are directly involved in their prevention.
Mr. Raslan finally delved into the action of other ministries in an attempt to provide an adequate healthy environment for the public. “What is needed is the removal of local poultry farms and pigs from the center of population and that the Environment and the Irrigation Ministries stop the licensing for industrial and tourism facilities that contaminate the River Nile. This is besides the powerful role, played by the media in producing new programs to raise the awareness of the citizens in addition to the introduction of health education in school curricula. Thus, these joint-efforts may contribute to the provision of a new meaning to the saying that prevention is better than cure”, concluded Mr. Raslan.
Mr. Raslan then gave the floor to Amb. Ferry de Kerckhove, Canada’s Ambassador to Egypt, who commenced his remarks by commending the medical profession for providing remarkable quality assistance compared to similar developing countries. The Canadian Ambassador ended his speech by stressing his confidence in Egypt’s heath sector and giving his credit to Egypt’s Ministry of Health for its transparent effort in dealing with the current health crises.

Following the introduction, Dr. Hatem El-Gabaly started his presentation by sharing his diagnosis of the country’s healthcare system, and outlining the development Egypt has concurred in key health indicators, mentioned that Egypt has lately achieved many realizations during the past 3-4 decades, marked in higher life expectancy, lower general mortality, decreasing infant and maternal mortality and the increase in the level of public health services in general.

“In 1960, Egypt had 186 infant mortalities per 1,000 live births and child mortality was 104 per 1,000 live births. Today, these rates have gone down to 28 children in addition to the maternal mortality rate which has dropped recently to 55 mothers per every 100,000” added the minister.
However, the minister argued that despite these improvements, the health care system in Egypt is still overwhelmed by several obstacles. He further pointed out that these obstacles include the lack of universal quality health insurance coverage; deprived admission to health care, unequal distribution of health services between the rural and urban areas, besides the insufficient financing on the public owned health care.
The minister also noted that most of the citizens evade the public health system due to their shortness of confidence in the public health units. “More than 62% of the population pays for health services out of their own pocket but unfortunately the low-income people are paying more than the rich ones,” he said. “According to current studies the low-income class is burdened by around 30% of their income for receiving medical care compared to only 4% consumed from the income of the better classes.”
Dr. El Gabaly delved into the endeavors of the government of Egypt (GOE) including a number of initiatives that were applied by the Ministry of Health to produce consequences that can be remarkably noticed by the public within the recent phase. One of these attempts is the introduction of generic drugs besides the genuine ones. As based on recent figures, generic drugs constitutes around 30% of total drugs and medicines available, leading to providing affordable options for the patients. In addition, he added that the expenditure on the prenatal care has increased from 66% in the nineties to 94% recently.
A major challenge facing health development in Egypt, added Dr. El-Gabaly is the separation of responsibility for health services as well as medical education coupled with outdated curricula and indifferent quality of training. Consequently, the Minister noted, structural reforms is also undertaken to provide a better and more complimentary health care organizations with better-educated and trained physicians, nurses and pharmacists, as well as allied personnel. “The Ministry has succeeded to build 1300 health care units in 3 years and is planning to reach 2500 unit by 2010 with a budget of EGP 1 billion and 5 hundred million. Our goal is to improve quality and repair the health sector in Egypt through implementing an Egyptian Health Sector Reform Program (HSRP) that was pioneered in Suez as a successful model to be replicated in other governorates”, the minister pointed out.

He went on explaining that one billion pounds out of the assets sold by the state were earmarked to carry out a comprehensive strategy to develop ambulance service in Egypt. Dr. Hatem El-Gabaly revealed that the service would be equipped with 1,800 new ambulances by the year 2010 and that recent service provides an equipped ambulance for every 33,000 citizens, which is not far from international criteria of providing one ambulance per every 25,000 citizens.

Moving to the impact of an ongoing epidemiological transition with the emergence of non-communicable and risk behavior-related diseases, the minister stated that swine flu is one of the major recent contributors to the disease burden, however the ministry’s strategic goal is not only to eliminate the flu, but also to contain the situation by active monitoring within the state as well as outside the boarders. Besides, examining the severity of the disease, that he finds less severe than the bird flu or even the seasonal flu where death rates only represents four in every 1000 disease carriers.
Boosting investment is another priority according to the minister, where opportunities outside the box are greatly promoted by the Government of Egypt. “One of the main concerns is the public-private partnerships and private financing initiatives; this is in addition to access, financing, provision and system stewardship”, added Dr. El-Gabaly.
Following his presentation, the Minister of Health answered questions raised from the floor on subjects including preventative health policies, the current state of swine flu control, the public confidence in public health virus, the quality of service in urban and rural areas and the over exaggeration of the state in dealing with epidemics in Egypt.