A lawsuit against Minister of Health Hala Zayed and El-Matareya Educational Hospital director was filled on Saturday over the death of a female doctor last week.
The lawsuit was, filled by Ahmed Hussien Mohamed, a Doctors’ Syndicate board member, accusing Zayed and the hospital’s director of ‘deliberately issuing false accounts about the death of Sarah Abu Bakr, to mislead public opinion and conceal facts of the real cause of Abu Bakr’s death.’
The young 34-year-old doctor died on Saturday 13 October in El-Matareya Educational Hospital, Cairo. Initial reports did not specify the cause of death, but revealed a 10cm black shape on the left thigh, and some burns were seen on the body, as well as dilated pupils.
The victim’s family refused to have her body undergo an autopsy. Her colleagues asserted on social media and press statements that she died of electric shock while she was taking a bath in the doctors’ dorms at the hospital.
However, the Health Ministry released a statement denying that Abu Bakr died due to an electric shock. It asserted that the death was due to “natural” causes, and the doctor died after she went into hypotensive shock, adding that there is no “suspicious criminal” cause of death.
Similarly, Mohamed Safi El-Din, the hospital director, refuted the cause of death—that the doctor died due to an electric shock—denying reports of finding “severe burn signs” on the body.
“Sarah died because of electric shock on Sunday at 2:30 am while she was taking a bath in the bathroom of female doctors’ dorms,” Mostafa Abu Bakr, the victim’s brother wrote on his Facebook account.
“We eventually decided to receive her body without an autopsy. Yes, there is negligence and mistakes, and the dorms are unsuitable even for animals. But in order to prove that we need to wait at least five more days until the forensic report is issued. We cannot afford to watch her suffer anymore,” Mostafa added.
