On Sunday, the Egyptian Medical Syndicate warned of the new bill proposed by members of the House of Representatives on medical liability that provides imprisonment as a legal penalty for medical errors. Rashwan Shaaban, a member of the Medical Syndicate Council, said that the syndicate called upon Abdel Fattah al-Sisi to intervene “because we do not know where the decisions are made.” The syndicate demanded that the penalty for a doctor who causes medical harm to a patient be a fine, not imprisonment. The announcement of the new parliamentary bill coincides with a military officer and his family assaulting nurses at a government hospital in Menoufia. The assault was recorded in video and circulated on social media, provoking outrage. They expressed their support for the medical staff at the hospital and referred to the occurrence as “a new episode in an old serial.”

The New Woman and the Cairo for Development and Law have said that nurses are pressured to give up their rights in exchange for financial compensation. On Friday, the General Nursing Syndicate denounced an army officer’s attack on nurses in a public hospital. The assault injured five nurses and three female workers, and one nurse suffered a miscarriage. The syndicate said it had sent a telegram to the Minister of Defense, Lieutenant General Mohamed Zaki, to take the necessary legal measures against the officer. It also called on the concerned authorities to quickly investigate the incident.

According to sources, the Minister of Health and Population, Khaled Abdel Ghaffar, has begun to communicate with the competent authorities to take the necessary measures. The syndicate affirmed that it would not give up the rights of its members, “who perform their role to the fullest without default.” It also called on state agencies to address cases of assault in hospitals. The head of the Doctors Syndicate in Menoufia, Hussein Nada, also said that the syndicate closely follows developments in the incident.