The Administrative Court accepted a lawsuit Saturday submitted by the Doctors’ Syndicate to increase the allowance for infections contracted by doctors while on the job.
The syndicate filed a case in April 2014 against then president, prime minister, and ministers of health and of housing, demanding that the government increase the amount of infection compensation to EGP 1,000. The dentists’ and pharmacists’ syndicates later joined the case.
Doctors were entitled to an infection allowance that ranges between EGP 19 and EGP 30 if they were infected during their work, despite the deadly dangers they face in their jobs, which caused several doctors’ deaths over the past year.
The court obliged the state on Saturday to increase the infection allowance, without specifying the percentage of the increase, putting the ball back in the courts of the executive branch.
The verdict said the Egyptian constitution compels the state to improve the doctor’s financial situation and the current allowance is not proportional to the dangers faced by doctors. The verdict further obligates the government to increase the compensation so that it is proportional with the rates of inflation.
However, the court rejected the approval of a treatment allowance of EGP 3000, due to the absence of a legislative base that allows such a verdict. The syndicate needs to submit a bill to the new parliament, who will then be able to issue a law that approves the doctors’ right to treatment allowance.
Dozens of doctors gathered in front of the court before the verdict, mourning the death of Dalia Mehrez, a doctor who died from meningitis after she got infected during her work.
The Ministry of Health previously accepted calls by the Doctors’ Syndicate to compensate Mehrez’s family for all expenses, since she was admitted into the hospital and her illness was recognised as a work related.
