CAIRO, Nov 16 (Aswat Masriya) – The Health Ministry said it will take legal action against the Doctors’ Syndicate’s deputy head after she claimed that doctors receive orders to use syringes and other medical supplies more than once due to a shortage in hospitals.

On a phone in on a show on Al-Asema channel, deputy head Mona Mina said she received a plea for help from a doctor who said that the hospital administration gave them oral instructions to reuse medical supplies on patients.

“This includes syringes and IV drips for example,” Mina clarified, “if a patient needs two IV drips a day, [they’re told] to use only one, if a patient needs two syringes, they are to cover one and use it again.”

Mina said she doesn’t blame the hospital administrations since they do not have enough medical supplies to begin with.

In a statement on the Cabinet’s Information and Decision Support Center (IDSC), the health ministry vehemently denied Mina’s claims, saying that it has sufficient stock of medical supplies to cover hospitals’ needs for two years.

“The ministry will take necessary legal procedures against the person responsible for spreading these false claims,” the statement said.

This comes amid calls by the Doctors’ Syndicate to apply a 2015 court ruling that increases compensations for infectious diseases and contagious health hazards to EGP 1000 a month, instead of the current EGP 19.

The ruling had also called on the state to improve the conditions of doctors, nurses and those working in the health sector overall, according to a statement by the Doctors’ Syndicate issued on Wednesday.  

The High Administrative Court is scheduled to look into the government’s appeal of the verdict on November 20.