Undersecretary of the Doctors Syndicate Mona Mina accused the Health Ministry of attempting to terrorize the syndicate after announcing that it would sue her over a statement on the reuse of syringes at government hospitals due to shortage in medical supplies. Mina said her statement was clear that she refers to an individual complaint.
Mina made her statement in a phone-in with Manchette talk-show program on the privately owned satellite channel Al-Asema (the capital) on Tuesday.
The veteran leftist activist said she received a message from a doctor at a government hospital saying doctors were verbally instructed to reuse syringes and intravenous lines more than once for the same patient due to shortages in medical supplies.
"My words are clear and I cannot generalize. I talked about a single case," Mina mentioned, adding that she did not say that the procedure was instructed in all government hospitals.
Mina described the Health Ministry's statement about litigating her as an attempt by the ministry to "terrorize" the syndicate so it does not report any coming violations that might occur by the government.
"I talked about other important shortcomings like shortage in insulin, rehydration salts, and cancer, eye, heart and pressure medications," Mina said, accusing the Ministry of attempting to turn the table on her.
However, people can judge by themselves on this issue because they suffer from the shortage of medications on market, she said.
She said the Ministry disregarded the important arguments concerning her talk and made a fuss about her statement on the reuse of syringes to draw the attention of the public away from the other important shortcomings.
Mina complained about the shortage in other medical supplies saying that al-Nasr national company has the ability to produce sufficient medical products but the Health Ministry refuses to grant the company a license and prefers to import its medical needs from abroad, which is unacceptable.
