Healthcare in Egypt

Julien, don't come NEAR public health sectors!

I am an obstetrician/gynecologist in Cairo.

As you can see, there isn't much of a "system" anywhere in Egypt.

Public healthcare system in Egypt, theorhetically, is supposed to be a mix between the british and the french system:

Primary healthcare facilities where a general practitioner would manage common cases, then secondary healthcare facilities for specialists, then tertiary healthcare facilities for critical cases.

Unfirtunately, wages are so bad that GP's leave their shifts for private hospitals, or illegaly work as specialists (without a degree) in a private clinic of their own.

Plus, there are not enough supplies since it's publicly funded.

Secondary care units are the same.

Tertiary care units, which are mostly big public hospitals, either university teaching hospitals or ministry of health teaching hospitals, have brilliant doctors but very very VERY bad service and funding.

So what you do basicalky is to search for doctors who work in such tertiary care hospitals, and see to which private hospitals they work (because everyone does, as public wages are pennies),and then you are on the right track!

And yes, do a private gealth insurance, and ask about the hospital first. You need to know its level of professionalism.

I do not have the specialist knowledge that Magnum  Joe has. I can only reply as an elderly man who lives  about seven months of the year in Egypt where I have a holiday home in Hurghada. I am on certain medications for high blood pressure and these and most other medicines made by Western pharmaceutical companies are available quite cheaply and without prescription.  The quality of the Egyptian medications seems to be very good indeed. if a chemist does not stockyou what you need, he can get it within a couple of hours
I have only once consulted  a Dr in the public health sector, who was recommended to me by an Egyptian friend of mine and for reasonably minor complaints these general practitioners are in the main, knowledgeable and good.  I have never and would never go to a public hospital for any treatment  in Egypt,  but there are many Private hospitals and on the occasions when I have been to them for stomach complaints, arthritic pain and other such problems which occur when one is over 70 years of age, I have found them to be excellent. On one occasion when I had quite a serious stomach complaint I had a full blood test done, stool test, urine test, ultra-scan of kidneys, stomach, prostate etc and the whole range of tests cost me less than US$100.
You can only get this type of price at one of the private hospitals if you have purchased a property in Egypt and can show a copy of the contract for your property, or if you have a resident's permit. If you do not have a property or resident permit the cost can be horrendous.  If you have Private health insurance – and I do not because I cannot afford it because at my age it would cost me over US$1000 a month– the hospitals will charge the insurance companies up to $1000 for a night's stay in the hospital plus treatment and medications.
As regards any form of operation or surgical procedure, I cannot comment on that as I have no experience of it. I feel quite safe in the hands of any Egyptian doctor in a private hospital and quite safe in the hands of any doctor outside a private hospital – say in  general practice – who is recommended by a knowledgeable  local Egyptian

i AM A DOCTOR FROM ANOTHER COUNTRY LIVING IN EGYPT.....SO I WILL NOT COMMENT ON THE NON EXISTING HEALTH CARE IN EGYPT..............but I love Egypt and I live here.....

Like anything in Egypt, but especially in healthcare, you get what you pay for.  First, I suggest going to doctors that are recommended by your embassy.  They will likely have been educated in your country and come recommended.

I had a few experiences with doctors and all of them were fine.  I had blood tests taken at vaccera, that was clean and fine.  I had gotten a yellow fever vaccine from a government office in Giza, and that too was clean and fine (although the building was terribly dirty).  I did however, visit 2 separate GYN doctors, recommended by (rich) Egyptian women, and had mediocre experiences with them.  Both charged me for a complete visit (400 LE) and all they did were talk to me about my age and fertility.  Neither examined me, or did any of the checkups that a GYN does in the western world.  I found this extremely odd and expensive for nothing!  I know that OB/GYN doctors are notorious for trying to schedule births, induce labor without telling the patient, and require C-sections for "medical" reasons, but really, it's because they cost more.  Due to that, I never bothered to get a physical with a general doctor.

In addition, while I was living in Cairo, I had a couple of family members fall ill and pass away at hospitals, and the conditions in the hospitals are not great.  The hygiene is ehh, and you can expect that in order to get proper treatments, you're paying.  We found that despite the fact that a close family friend who is a doctor, indicated that our relative was terminally ill, the doctors giving treatment were deceivingly hopeful, and kept ordering expensive, unnecssary tests to prolong the inevitable.  At the time, we were told that our relative was responding well and would recover.  Little did we know, it was the opposite.  Second and third opinions all agreed that the tests were completely unnecessary.  After reviewing the insane hospital bill, and questioning some of the line items, hospital staff scrambled to scratch off the "mistaken" charges.  They tried to slip in thousands of pounds of falsified treatments.

So all in all, it's a toss up.  Avoid the hospitals.

I have been in Egypt on and off since 2009 working.
However, still to this day I don't have any health Insurance.
Ex Pat insurance is waaaaay to expensive, Whilst Egyptian health Insurance policies and cover are cheaper, I was warned too many times by Egyptians themselves that it's a waste of money as the cover is not good and the treatment is very bad.
Therefore I take my chances and hope that my health will be ok..I cannot afford insurance anyway on my salary!

I live in a small village and have found the doctors offices to be unclean and no updated any equipment......people come at 7 pm and wait till they are seen...is open till about 11 and cost 20 EGP or $2.63 american......I went for a stomach problem and I knew what was wrong ....the people that knew me wanted me to see the doctor so I did......and when he asked me a few questions decided I had an ear infection and gave me medication for the ear.....what about my stomach....this will go away he said........oh well........a friend had a heart problem ...the doctor ordered an IV and a 12 or 13 teen year old boy brought the IV and hung it up on the window latch .....opened it with his teeth put it in her arm and left ...when it was ready to be changed he came back and did it again........oh well...a shot for your baby go to the pharmacy and they will jab it in to your baby's butt no cleaning or any thing.....they opt for shots here rather than medication

rrikkipoo

Fortunately, the healthcare system in hurghada and in sharm el sheikh is much better than most of egypt. This is because it has a big community of expats and tourists and there is not room for mistakes.

Granted, individually, most doctors in egypt are fine. Our training is not the best but it has only one advantage over the west: Flow. Put flow with bad work environment you get a doctor who is very resourceful and has seen a lot.

I am glad that this is your experience in egypt.

snadiay

Unfortunately, you have ran into the worst kind of doctors: medical corporate sharks!

This happens mostly when you go into a hospital and depend on the hospital getting you a consultant of their own. This means that more or less, the decision making will be administrative not medical, the administraiton usually pressure their consultants to increase flow or profit. That's why one should try first to find a trustable consultant so he'd be taking the wheel from the hospital management. I am sorry you had to endure through this.

As for OBGYNs, that's a nightmare. It has become known in the past 2-3 decades that OBGYN, and especially Obstetrics, is the specialty of marketing strategies, not medicine. Doctors try all the time to provide all forms of luxury to their patients without any true medical content.

And what's worse, is that they, like you said, schedule deliveries and do unindicated C-sections because either they want the money or they want to avoid the randomness of normal deliveries to lead a more comfortable lifestyle.

And what's even worse, they justify what they do with very flimsy and poor medical explanations. We call is the "Market Medicine".

And what's enormously worse, is this market medicine is finding its way to the undergrad books and notes of OBGYN. No one follows guidelines or keeps up with any of the recommendations.

All this grave ethical mistakes happen in all medicine, but they specifically are more frequent to encounter in OBGYN, because people in egypt are uneducated enough to believe that the radical surgical measure must be always the better. So the C-section became socially acceptable more than normal delivery. The hysterectomy for a small fibroid became much more acceptable than a myomectomy. To the point that any conservative measure taken with a patient is considered to be a sign of a failing doctor.

It's amazing what some people can do to change the culture to their own end.

To go through all this without problems, you need luck and/or deep knowledge of the "market"

So... Good luck to everyone

Dear Joe
I live in cairo near fifth settlement new cairo and wish to seek help at the best dentistry centers. Could you please recommend the most excellent center and dentist nearby. The last thing I need is to catch a hepatitis c as I know it's wide spread and normally health care facilities do not have good sterilization. Thanks.

I have very good clean dentist but he is in Hadayek Helwan to far for you I think