Aswan University Hospitals have so far and since the outbreak of the war in Sudan on 16 April, received and offered necessary treatment to 50 Sudanese who sought refuge in Egypt’s Aswan, the southernmost governorate which borders with Sudan, Aswan University announced.
According to the Dean of Aswan’s Faculty of Medicine, Mohamed al-Dahshouri, all the departments of the university hospitals are working in full swing to provide the necessary treatment for the displaced Sudanese. Treatment is offered free of charge, he said, while continuous coordination is ongoing with Egyptian authorities and the Sudanese Consulate in Egypt.
Ashraf Mebed, Aswan University Hospitals Executive Director, said that the 50 cases benefited from the services of orthopaedics, internal medicine, pediatrics, ophthalmology, and general surgery. According to Dr Me’bed, the department of general surgery performed major and intricate operations that were urgent and could not be delayed, on a number of critical cases.
Dr Dahshouri stressed Aswan University Hospitals’ willingness to provide any needed medical services for displaced Sudanese.
In the same context and spirit of supporting displaced Sudanese and offering them healthcare, mobile clinics were stationed inside the Karkar land park in Aswan where the displaced arrive. Minister of Health and Population, Khaled Abdel-Ghaffar visited the mobile clinics unit on 3 May, and inspected the services offered. He met the medical teams who told him that some 350 cases visit the unit daily. The unit includes five clinics where a team of 10 doctors, 18 nurses and three pharmacists work. The clinics incorporate the services of treatment convoys, referral hospitals, ambulance services, and vaccination. Besides that, there are four teams assigned to offer the services of the presidential initiative 100 million healthy lives. The initiative was launched in 2021 for the early detection of Hepatitis C virus (HCV), non-communicable diseases (NCDs: diabetes, high blood pressure and obesity), and women’s health for more than 100 million Egyptian citizens, and later branched out to reach other African countries; it has examined and treated more than 45 million in Egypt.
The mobile clinics in Aswan also include a clinic for mental support for children of Egyptian and Sudanese families arriving from Sudan. Dr Abdel-Ghaffar especially praised the effort that was put into establishing the mental support clinic.
The Minister of Health also inspected the work of the preventive medicine teams assigned to control insects, rodents and disease vectors, as part of the Ministry’s plan to secure Egyptians and those coming from Sudan.
On 30 April, Egypt’s Foreign Ministry had announced that 16,000 non-Egyptians had legally crossed into Egypt. The country had also repatriated 6960 Egyptians from Sudan.
Watani International
4 May 2023