for the sake of affording every Egyptian appropriate medical insurance, Health Minister Ahmed Emad El-Din announced on Sunday that a new draft law on medical insurance is currently under the State Council’s revision.
He further noted, during a conference held by ‘Etisal’ organization, that the draft law on medical insurance will be referred to Parliament for discussion following its expected ratification by State Council.
In the same context, he said that the new health insurance system will grant every citizen an electronic card to receive the insurance’s services. The system will be active following the collection of information on citizens in co-operation with the Ministry of Communication; the collected information will include personal details on each citizen.
The conference of ‘Etisal’ organization was aiming at discussing ways of improving medical services in Egypt with the help of technology. The Health Minister stressed during the conference that the new medical insurance system will only be active through the usage of latest means of technology.
Moreover, the Health Minister explained during the conference that his ministry has ended preparations of a “comprehensive medical map” for Egypt; the Ministry will be able to get information on the medical capabilities of each governorate.
“The comprehensive medical map has effectively contributed to uncovering several places in Egypt that are actually suffering from shortages in appropriate medical services, such as Kafr El-Sheikh governorate, which has eight million citizens and does not have a single catheter device,” the Health Minister said during the conference .
Meanwhile, the Health Minister also announced that Egypt’s Intensive Care system will also be managed through the latest technological means available, referring to the full revision operation that is underway to prepare Intensive Care units in the Suez Canal governorates with late means of technology.
“The Health Ministry has 3,642 Intensive Care units. In 2015 only 40 percent from these units were active; we managed in just one year to make 95 percent of these units active and the remaining 5 percent are still under preparation”, explained the minister.
Recently, and after it was sent to the State Council, the new draft law for the medical insurance in Egypt has been met by objection from the Doctors Syndicate that considered it as a violation to the constitution.
Through a legal petition it sent to the State Council, the Syndicate expressed anger over the draft law, arguing that the draft law will only include subscribers, and will not covering all Egyptians as it should do, according to Article No.18 in 2014 constitution.
Moreover, the petition mentioned that part of the draft law No. 40 obligates the citizen to pay a part of the provided medical services’ cost and this is considered a clear violation to the constitution.
