Egypt’s new malpractice law could accelerate an exodus of doctors, medics warn

Egypt’s new malpractice law could accelerate an exodus of doctors, medics warn

Late at night in a Cairo public hospital, a young doctor treating a patient in severe pain found the CT scanner was broken, so relying on his clinical judgment alone, he performed an emergency appendectomy.

“It was a calculated risk,” he said. “But under the new malpractice law … I wouldn’t have taken that chance. I would have discharged the patient and waited for him to seek a CT scan elsewhere — even if it meant the patient’s appendix ruptured.”

This scenario, recounted anonymously, underscores the fears many Egyptian doctors have voiced over a draft medical malpractice law that intends to address patients’ complaints about poor treatment by imposing punitive measures, including fines and the detention of doctors who give substandard care.

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