Issue No. 591
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20 - 26 June 2002 Issue No. 591 Features |
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 | Recommend this page | ||
The doctors' dilemma
Mona El-Nahhas investigates a system that lets the quacks get through
Almost everybody in Ataba had heard of Mohamad Awad Khamis. He was, it was said, one of the best neurologists in town. Then, two months ago, he was arrested. It had been revealed that he was unqualified as a doctor. He had no academic certificates in medicine whatsoever.
But the number of fake doctors to be revealed in a short space of time was, if not yet taking on epidemic proportions, becoming decidedly serious.
Only a fortnight before Khamis's arrest, Mohieddin Abul-Ma'ati, assistant to the general- manager of an Agouza hospital, was also found to be lying about his medical credentials. And shortly before that, some pregnant women had the shock of their lives when they were told their treating obstetrician, whatever his qualifications, was definitely not a doctor, let alone a specialist in obstetrics.
Every now and then stories of doctors turning out to be fakes make it into the press. But how they have succeeded, often over a long period of time, in maintaining their deception largely remains a mystery.
How do they manage to fool their patients? What about the medical authorities that are supposed to oversee the activities of doctors?
The Doctors' Syndicate denies any responsibility in such matters. Dr Osama Raslan, the syndicates' secretary-general, told Al-Ahram Weekly that his organisation unreservedly disociated itself from either Khamis or Abul-Ma'ati, since they were not doctors.
"Our role," he said, "is limited to punishing doctors registered at the syndicate." This is a loophole-free process, according to Dr Raslan, because to register with the syndicate original certificates must be submitted.
Dr Raslan said the Ministry of Health was responsible for supervising private clinics and issuing licences. "The Doctors Syndicate has failed to obtain any legal authority giving it control over private clinics," he said.
Following the arrest of Abul-Ma'ati, the then Minister of Health Ismail Sallam announced that the ministry would examine the files of all doctors and nurses working for governmental and non-governmental hospitals.
Dr Assem Abdel-Nasser, the ministry official in charge of supervising private clinics and issuing them with licences, told the Weekly:: "To get licensed, a doctor who wants to open a clinic should first provide proof that he or she is registered at the syndicate. In addition, the ministry undertakes a nationwide monthly survey of clinics."
Abdel-Nasser added: "If we find a clinic without the required licence, or if we find that the medical equipment being used is unsuitable, then we order the clinic's immediate closure."
The system sounds fool-proof, but it clearly isn't in the light of the recent medical scandals.
Over a five-year period, Khamis ran a busy clinic, treating an average of 40 patients daily. They went to Khamis even though his "clinic" was merely a one-room rented flat lacking the most basic medical equipment.
In this small room, situated in a cemetery, Khamis also wrote some 28 books on various medical specialisations. The Psychology of the Modern Egyptian Woman is the most prominent example.
Khamis has been quoted as saying that when he was released from custody he would open another clinic. His Sayeda Zeinab clinic, he added, was not his first. He began practising medicine in the low-income area of Ataba in 1992. He was arrested and held for a month in 1995 and then he opened his second clinic in Sayeda Zeinab in 1997.
In court, Khamis claimed, when asked by the prosecution, to have a BA degree in philosophy and psychology. Later he admitted to having failed to complete his secondary education.
But he said, he had "read a lot about psychology and neurology" and though neurology is a very difficult field he had succeeded in it, managing to diagnose and treat several cases of paralysis. But, he added, he never undertook surgical operations.
His most interesting revelation, however, was that throughout the ten years that he had practised, nobody from the Ministry of Health had ever asked him about the clinic's licence or his academic certificates.
Despite these revelations, the people of Sayeda Zeinab still like and respect Khamis, whom they continue to refer to as 'doctor'.
Samir Azab, the owner of a coffee shop, said: "I feel sorry for him. He is a very kind and pious man."
Khamis treated Azab for what Azab was a neurological complaint. "Dr Khamis prescribed some injections for me and I felt much better," he told the Weekly.
Khamis, he said, wrote prescriptions which carried the address of a clinic in Heliopolis.
The address was later revealed to be fictitious.
Khamis's former patients make light of his lack of qualifications.. The free medical treatment he gave them remains of greater imnportance.
"He treated many serious cases. And he never took money from the poor," said Bakr Farag, who spent two months in Al Khanqa hospital suffering from depression. "I could not afford to pay treatment fees at hospitals. Khamis treated me without taking any money. Moreover, he used to give me the medicine I needed," said Farag.
Dr Amr Fayez, professor of obstetrics at Ain Shams University, said some quacks got away with their swindle by prescribing antibiotics and painkillers . "Such medications are relatively harmless," he said.
The other high-profile case of fraud discovered in an Agouza hospital, that of Mohieddin Abul- Ma'ati, the hospital's deputy general manager and the person in charge of the hospital's blood bank, is perhaps even more mind boggling than that of Khamis. He held his appointment on the strength of having submitted his qualifications to the hgospital's management.
Those papers, however, turned out to be nothing more than photocopies of forged certificates.
Official records at the hospital show, moreover, that Abul Ma'ati was not the only one to be appointed without submitting originals of his academic certificates.
Abdel-Nasser acknowledges that in the past there has been negligence in applying the law. "Of course," he said, "we cannot catch every swindler in Egypt. Sometimes, individual cases manage to get away with it,".
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