 |
Al-Ahram Weekly 20 - 26 April 2000 Issue No. 478 
|
||
Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
| ||
|
Al-Ahram Weekly 20 - 26 April 2000 Issue No. 478
|
||
| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
| ||
Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Heritage Features Travel Living Sports Profile People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters Bad medicine
Sir-I just finished reading your article about the need to improve medical services (Al-Ahram Weekly, 13-19 April) . I had two bad experiences in Egypt that simply terrified me. I could say I was witness to a murder -- and I denounce, in front of God if not in front of the law, the doctors who cover their mistakes, because simple people are afraid of autopsies, so that in the death certificate they write anything but the truth.Iman, 21 years old, was admitted to a hospital in Bulaq to be treated for anemia. We took her to the hospital a little weak, but surely healthy and full of life, and we took home a corpse -- thanks to a so-called "doctor" who chose the wrong blood group for the transfusion. We wanted to take her to another hospital, and I was told there was no need, because she was being taken care of perfectly there. She died few hours later, with no assistance at all, with her poor mother left alone to give her oxygen, in a place that nobody should dare to call a "hospital."
Some times ago, while I was driving with my husband in 6 October City, we were stopped by a group of workers, who asked us to take a boy, who had fallen from a four-storey building, to the local hospital. Arrived there, with the boy in very bad condition, we waited more than 15 minutes for the stretcher. In the end, we had to carry him inside ourselves (as everybody knows, this could be very dangerous in such a case), since, when the stretcher finally came, it still had to be assembled... Incidentally, it was so old that it could be an excellent piece for the Egyptian Museum. But what is really shocking is that, after all that, not a single surgeon was available, and there was no possibility of getting an X-ray.
Laura Callegari
6 October City
Running gags
Sir- It is interesting to read about what amuses Egyptians, that the worn out and overly repeated jokes about Monica Lewinsky and President Clinton still raises a laugh.I for one do not find either the story or the interpretation amusing. Right-wing forces have besieged our president since the day he was first elected. Hating his humble origins, his political acumen and intellectual superiority, his political enemies have been able to capitalise on his weakness for women. However, to suggest that Monica is responsible for getting Paula Jones to sue the president for sexual harassment misses the point. The real culprit is Larry Klayman, whose organisation, Judicial Watch, has taken on every comer who wanted to "get" the president.
That there are so many lawyers in this country is part of the problem, but the real issue is the right-wing fundamentalist special-interest groups who intended to humiliate the president by publicly outing his affair. He is guilty of a private consensual sexual relationship, like many if not most men of power, married or not. He did not lie and trade arms for drugs, like Reagan...
If you want to shift the focus and have a good laugh at Americans, save your vitriol for those who deserve it like Jesse Helms, Newt Gingrich, or Henry Hyde... They have all done the same as Clinton, and much worse.
M Adams
Dallas, Texas
