Egypt is known for its ancient remarkable history in the field of medicine and medication. Ancient writings and paintings on walls of temples and tombs show that medical plants that had been in use for medication almost 3000 years ago. Egyptian excelled in anatomy, physiolgy and mummifcation.

 

When Ahmad Ibn Touloon assumed office he established the first hospital (Bimarstan) in Egypt, in the southern al-Qata'ie city. Ibn Toloun cared for patients and provided them with physicians, pharmacists and medication.

Under the reign of Salah Eddin al-Ayyoubi Saladin, many medical care houses were established , such as ‘Bimarstan'in Alexandria and ‘The Ancient Bimarstan' in Cairo (577AH-1181 AD).

 

When Mohamed Ali took over in 1805, a school of medicine was established at Abu-Zàbal in 1827 and later moved to the first school of Qasr Al Aini in Cairo. The hospital then had 300 students and accommodated more than 1,000 patients.

The first school of midwifery was set up at Qasr Al Aini hospital in 1838.

Appended to the school of medicine, a school of pharmacy was set up in 1829 and a school of nursing was set up in 1928.

 

Today, Egypt has a strong health infrastructure, which includes hospitals, medical centres, institutions and highly specialized medical staff that supports preventive and therapeutic medical services in Egypt and all Arab countries.

The state's health policy aims to provide citizens with all health sevices, by guaranteeing health service quality, paying due attention to motherhood and childhood services, activating family programs, as well as the gradual expansion of health insurance coverage.

 

Investments implemented in the health service field during (2004/05) reached opprox. LE 2.4 billion, of which LE1.7 billion were implemented by the government and economic agencies accounting for 70.8 perecent of total inveatments allocated for this program. Investments allocated for health care (2005/06)hit LE 2.5 billion.

 

* Number of public and central hospitals mounted to 387.

* Number of rural hospitals mounted to 1192.

* Number of beds at the Ministry of Health hospitals mounted to 170,000.

* Vaccination coverage for children aged 12 months reached 98 percent.

Expenditure on Health

Egypt spends 3.7 percent of its gross domstic product on health including treatment costs 22 percent incurred by citizens and the rest by the state.

The state provided a comprehensive strategy for health care, within the framework of applying health reform policy. It focuses on three aspects:

- Applying the family medicine model to provide a high quality health care for all family members.

 - Caring for the disabled and promoting health services.

- Providing services, in accordance with criteria liable to evaluation, activation and encouragement of society participation.

Such strategy aims to provide health care for child and woman as well as a package of public services.

Health Insurance … Right for Every Citizen

Health insurance in Egypt was provided since 1964 for 140,000 citizens as the optimal way for providing medical and health care for citizens .The state is keen on extending health insurance coverage to include non-insured new categories. The total number of the insured beneficiaries reached 37.300 million, of which about 27.92 million under laws and a number of 11.208 million insured child under ministerial decrees, showing an insurance coverage of about 51.6 percent of Egypt's population.

 

- Number of decrees issued in 2005 providing for state-financed medical treatment rose at an average of 5 percent compared to 2004, with 1.397 million cases treated during 2005 against 1.386 million in 2004.

- A number of 5,000 state-financed medical treatment decrees are issued daily.

- State-financed medical treatment expenses mounted to LE 1,568 billion during 2005 against LE 1,567 billion in 2004

 

The conference was held in Sharm El-Sheikh (September, 2006). It focused on providing high-quality health services for people living in remote governorates.

The state laid down an urgent plan to provide such services, LE 200 million were allocated as an additional support to the medical team system to such governorates. In cooperation with local authorities, a number of 708 medical teams , from all specializations were sent to all governorates.

The state started providing health services for south Sinai governorate, in accordance with its role to achieve tourist development.

 

Pharmaceuticals are considered a strategic commodity, given its vital importance for citizens' health.

- Drug market sales volume showed $ 7,211 billion in 2005.

- Domestic pharmaceutical production value showed LE 6.1 billion.

- Egyptian pharmaceutical exports to Arab, African and East European countries (92 countries) showed LE 520 million.

- The Egyptian pharmaceutical market showed growth rate of 16.2 percent.

- There are 64 productive pharmaceutical factories, of which 49 are private-sector-owned.

No integrated health services could be provided without the concomitant provision of blood with all its derivatives and in all quantities, groups and in accordance with international quality and standards.

Thus, the state pays due attention to upgrade blood banks and equip them with state-of-the-art-technology, concomitant with providing a qualified labor force  that is capable of keeping abreast of modern technology.

 

The private sector represents a cornerstone of providing medical and therapeutic services for citizens including private clinics, hospitals, pharmacies, dispensaries and analyses labs.

 

The rapid growth of population is considered one of the main problems facing the national economy, as it has a negative impact on socio-economic development efforts. The state's efforts in the field of family planning and awareness of the danger of overpopulation resulted in a tangible drop in population growth rate from 2.1 percent in 1996 to 1,91 percent in 2005.

The population and family planning strategies are based on the following:

- Continuing to reinforce the mobile clinics in slums.

- Providing the latest contraceptives.

- Promoting public awareness and providing medical teams in rural units.

 

1- Reducing population growth rate.

2- Achieving the best geographical population distribution.

3- Promoting demographic properties.

4- Decreasing demographic, social and economic discrepancies between different population groups and geographic areas.

5- In general, the national population policy in Egypt aims to control population growth rate, reduce annual increase rate to 0.1 percent, as the population inside Egypt is expected to reach about LE 73.6 million in 1/1/2006.

 

Normal population growth in 2005 mounted to 1,350,343, that means:

- A monthly increase of 112,0529.

- A daily increase of 3,700,i.e. a birth every 23.4 seconds.

Life Expectancy at Birth by Gender*

Year	Male	Female
2004	4,68	73,8
2005	69,2	73,6

       

Family medicine is the underpinning of the unified comprehensive health insurance system.

It mainly aims to provide developed and up-to-date  health services. This could be realized through studying the society's health problems in order to find the appropriate solutions for about 80-90 percent of the cases.

 

This system has been applied in 19 governorates through a number of health units, providing a physician for every 500 family, living in one neighborhood. In doing so, each family gets about 70 percent of health services in the nearest health unit. These services include child vaccinations, first-aid health services, pharmaceuticals, motherhood and childhood care, family planning and laboratory analyses. In light of this medical system, each family has a medical record from that contains the family's medical and genetic history, as a preliminary step towards extending the medical insurance coverage to reach each and every citizen in Egypt during the upcoming five years.

 

Population and Family Planning:

Curbing the problem of overpopulation is considered one of the state's major priorities in the current phase.

 

- Contraceptive usage rate increased from 58.2 percent in 2004 to 63.3 percent in 2005, causing a decline in total fertility level from 3.1 children per woman in 2004 to 3.08 children in 2005.

- Rural pioneer women paid 3.91 million family-planning awareness visits to 486,000 families (1.8 million women).

- A Number of 100 new mobile clinics were equipped to provide reproductive health and family planning services in slums, bringing the total number of the currently operating mobile clinics to 590.

- The Number of family planning services centers rose to 6550.

- A number of 640 physicians and nurses were trained on offering family plan service. Moreover, 730 physicians and specialists were trained for the same job.

 

State Information Service…A prominent Role in Population Media :

The Information, Education and Communication Center plays a prominent and active role in the field of population media in Egypt, coordinating with the Ministry of Health and Population through audio-visual mass media and direct contact through internal media centers, performing the following activities:

    Cultural seminars with the Public and Youth, literature and art competitions and movies to raise awareness on the dimensions of population problem.