'Tahrir Doctors' co-founder elected sec-gen of Egyptian doctors union

ِAhram Online, by Tony Gamal Gabriel

Mona Mina elected secretary-general of doctors union as a broad coalition of non-Muslim Brotherhood candidates win a majority of seats on governing board

Veteran rights activist Dr Mona Mina was elected doctors union secretary-general on Thursday, becoming the first woman and Christian to hold the post.

A broad coalition of non-Muslim Brotherhood candidates won a majority on the union's board.

A founding member of 'Doctors Without Rights', Mina was an organiser of an unprecedented national doctors strike in May 2012. Doctors at public hospitals took industrial action to demand minimum salaries and for healthcare spending to rise from 4 percent to 15 percent of the state budget.

She is also a founding member of Tahrir Doctors, a group in charge of field hospitals during regular clashes between protesters and security forces since the January 2011 uprising.

Dr Amr El-Shoura, newly elected to the board, told Ahram Online that the union's priority would be to increase healthcare spending, increase doctors' minimum wage, and implement new rules regulating doctors' promotions and transfers.

The Independence List, a broad coalition of non-Muslim Brotherhood candidates, won 11 of 12 seats available on the union's main board, ending the Islamist group's long-standing dominance.

Half the seats on the main board were contested in Friday's mid-term elections, as were half the seats on the board of each provincial branch.

In 2011, the Independence List stunned observers by winning solid majorities on union boards in 14 out of 27 governorates, trouncing the Brotherhood -- which had controlled the union for 30 years -- in a number of places it never dreamed of losing. In the national union board elections, the Independence List won six out of 24 seats, braking the Brotherhood’s monopoly of power.

CORRECTION: Mona Mina has been elected secretary general of the doctors union and not head as mentioned before.