Via McClatchy, by Mohannad Sabry
Gaber Sayyed's friends autographed his leg cast; one autograph reads "The police are thugs." | Mohannad Sabry/MCT
CAIRO — Egypt is stepping up efforts to treat thousands of wounded revolutionaries, but many of the injured say they've yet to receive compensation and feel their sacrifices for democracy are going unnoticed by the transitional government.
Despite a more streamlined registration process and easier access to public hospitals, protesters who were wounded in the uprising that toppled Hosni Mubarak last year are deeply in debt from medical bills and have suffered complications from the lack of care, according to interviews this month with several victims, volunteers and state health officials.
Around 1,000 Egyptians have died in the uprising, including at least 100 who were killed in clashes since the military took power on Feb. 11, 2011. Those families have received cash compensation payments, officials said, but the government is still struggling to identify and provide for the 12,500 who were injured since anti-Mubarak demonstrations began Jan. 25, 2011.
Doctors say the vast majority of the wounded are young men from poor backgrounds, many with injuries so severe that they'll never work again.
"I realized the real size of the problem when I accepted the post," said Dr. Hosni Saber, a prominent Egyptian-German physician who was appointed by the government last month to lead the National Council for Martyrs and Injured.
"Those furious victims are about to explode," he said.
Take 31-year-old Gaber Sayed, who joined the uprising in protest of the miserable conditions in his neighborhood, Saft el Laban, where Mubarak's heavy-handed police terrorized residents and the lack of employment made it difficult for young men like him to afford to get married.
On Jan. 28, 2011, Sayed stood among thousands of protesters on a bridge leading to Tahrir Square in downtown Cairo. A government personnel carrier sped across the bridge, striking Sayed and leaving him with "multiple fractures to the right leg and a fracture to the right arm," according to medical records his family provided to McClatchy.
The injuries set in motion a dark journey for Sayed, who would find a lack of government assistance at every turn of his recovery. He's been confined to bed for a year now, battling infections from shoddy care as his family sinks further in debt to the neighborhood pharmacist and private doctors. To help pay the costs, his mother sold the gold wedding band she wore for 35 years.
Saber, the council chairman, and others who've worked on Sayed's case confirmed his account of government negligence that began the night he was struck on the bridge. McClatchy also examined his hospital bills.
No ambulances were near the square the night Sayed was hit, and Mubarak's regime had severed phone lines in a desperate attempt to stop protesters from organizing. A woman fleeing the scene took pity on Sayed and ushered him into her car.
"Her hand was injured and bleeding. She insisted on taking me to the hospital, and she never told me her name," Sayed said.
First he was admitted to Kasr el Eini hospital, the nearest to Tahrir Square, and underwent minor surgery to stabilize the fractures before he and other wounded protesters were abruptly dismissed, on the apparent orders of the then-crumbling Mubarak regime.
"They kicked us out of the hospital and said none of us would receive any further treatment," Sayed recalled. "Most of us were carried out by family members and friends. We were screaming in pain."
He languished, untreated, at home. Every two weeks, his family brought him back to the hospital, and each time he was rejected, Sayed said. By then, the hospital was overwhelmed with fresh victims from the continuing clashes.
Gaber Sayyed's friends autographed his leg cast; one autograph reads "The police are thugs." | Mohannad Sabry/MCT
Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2012/01/30/137350/egypt-boosts-aid-to-wounded-protesters.html#storylink=cpy#storylink=cpy
If that is the case...then they should add more. You can't help it because many still suffers.
Posted by: freelance writing jobs | 02/02/2012 at 07:37 AM