The doctors’ strike aims at applying the health laws that already exist but are not implemented such as providing medical services in the emergency rooms of government hospitals for free, Dr. Mona Mina, member of the doctors’ strike higher committee, said on Friday.

Patients in Egypt are entitled to medical services in emergency rooms such as giving birth, bandaging broken bones and other emergencies without the need to pay any fees, Dr. Mina said in an on-air interview with ON TV channel on Friday morning.

The Ministry of Health law states this right directly but it is not applied due to budget deficits in government hospitals which prompts the hospitals’ administrations to impose fees on patients.

Doctors in Egypt began a partial strike since the first day of October to demand providing hospitals with security, increasing the health budget in the state’s general budget and applying the doctors’ pay structure.

Dr. Mina expressed her discontent with what she called “a media way against the doctors’ strike.” As an example, she cited a news story reporting that Om al-Masriyeen hospital has stopped working due to the strike while in fact the hospital has been closed for six months because of renovations and it has nothing to do at all with the strike.