A 4-month-old baby with a fever was allegedly refused treatment in Kafr el-Sheikh General Hospital by a senior doctor and Muslim Brotherhood supporter upon discovering the baby was named “Sisi” after General Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, Egypt's defense minister who overthrew the former Islamist President Mohamed Morsy on July 3, 2013.
Governor of Kafr El-Sheikh, Chancellor Mohamed Ezzat Agwa told Egypt Independent that the governmental Interrogators “punished the doctor by stopping him from any work dealing with patients and excluding his work only to administrative work as well as referring him to the administrative prosecution for further punitive decisions”.
This incident is yet another manifestation of the political polarization engulfing the country following the ouster of Morsy. As Egypt Independent has previously reported, Egyptians are also growing reluctant to donate blood fearing it would go to someone who adopts a different political view, which in turn makes him "undeserving". Following the crackdown on Rabaa al-Adaweya square which left thousands injured, the country suffered a shortage of blood in hospitals and blood banks leading to patients dying in the operation rooms.
The baby bearing the unique first name, El-Sisi Osman Atyya, is from a village in Kafr el-Sheikh province, about 134 km north of Cairo. His father named him after General El-Sisi when he was in Tahrir square on 26th of July, participating in the nation-wide pro-Sisi rallies in response to the general’s request to Egyptians to grant him a mandate “to confront any probable terrorism and violence.
“My family phoned me this day and told me that my wife is delivering a baby, and when I knew he was a boy, I named him El-Sisi because I love General Sisi,” 30-year-old Osama Attya told Egypt Independent.
According to Sisi’s father, his wife hurried to the state-run Kafr el-Sheikh hospital as her baby had a fever. On seeing the appointment form, Ezzat Abdulaziz, a doctor at a senior level at the hospital “saw my son’s name on the form and frowningly said to my wife take your son out” said Osama Attya, adding that another doctor treated his son.
“This doctor is much older than me and in a senior position, he grows a short beard and just came from Saudi Arabia” said Kafr el-Sheikh Hospital Manager, Dr Mohamed al-Adooly.
“The most important thing for me is that the kid was treated shortly and received his medicine and recovered” says Dr Al-dooly, confirming that after the incident, the hospital interrogated the doctor at the hospital’s legal affairs department and then referred him to the governor’s office for more interrogation.
After 8 days, Osama has been surprised today that the Kafr el-Sheikh governor sent him a car to pick him up from his village to the city building to question him after the hospital filed a petition against the doctor.
“The doctor came to our house and apologized and my wife said she did not file any complaint against him” said the father of the child.
Kafr el-Shiekh governor described “the doctor’s performance as negligence in his duties as a physician.”
State-run newspaper Al-Ahram reported on 6 Oct 2013 that the Governor of Kafr el-Sheikh was the first government official to sign a petition urging General Abdel Fatah El-Sisi to run for presidential elections.
Governor Agwa and a group of officials from his governorate signed the petition clarifying that they did so as citizens and not state officials.
