Nadine Shams, the 42-year-old screenwriter, died on Saturday after her health deteriorated while at the intensive care unit of Egypt International Hospital, Misr Al-Dawli, in Dokki. Shams' family holds the hospital responsible for her death, believing that a medical error was committed in the course of the surgery she had performed there days earlier. Shams was admitted to hospital for an ovarian tumor surgery. “Following her death,” Khaled Abdel-Hamid, an activist and a friend of the deceased recounts, “her husband Nabil Al-Qott was handed a report — that was not sealed — stating that Shams died as a result of a Breton inflammation that led to toxic shock. Nevertheless, when her husband asked the hospital's administration for a sealed report, the hospital administration changed the cause of death to pulmonary vein thrombosis so as to avoid any criminal responsibility.” Al-Qott had filed a complaint demanding a forensic doctor to determine the cause of death, delaying his wife's burial. He accused the hospital of negligence. “In our culture it is said that honouring a dead person is in their burial,” Nesmahar Sayed, a journalist and a friend of Shams, said. “We, however, preferred to appeal to forensic medicine for autopsy to determine the cause of death. In Shams' case it is better to say ‘honouring the dead person is in doing her justice'.” Shams' family insist that opening the file of medical negligence in Egypt, from which thousands of families have suffered, is the best thing they can do to honour her. “Since we were students, Shams has been known for supporting justice and facing injustice to the extent that she was called ‘Nadine Justice' at college,” Sayed said. Shams graduated from the Higher Cinema Institute. She wrote the script for Ehna Etkabelna Abl Kida (We've met before), a 2008 film starring Egyptian actress Nelly Kareem. She also worked on the popular television series Moga Harra (Heat wave) last Ramadan and another, Bil Sham' Al-Ahmar (With Red Wax). Presidential hopeful Hamdeen Sabahi mourned Shams on his Twitter account. “A prayer of mercy and forgiveness for the soul of Nadine Shams,” he wrote. Negligence has become a major problem in many fields in Egypt. However, it is rather catastrophic in the medical sector, where it is often a matter of life and death. Numerous fatal mistakes have been reported leading to numerous deaths and causing people to question the efficiency of physicians and surgeons. That is why most top state officials prefer to receive treatment overseas. Prosecutors have ordered the transfer of Shams' body to the Zeinhom morgue for the verification of the cause of death. The forensic report is scheduled to be released within days; however, the spokesman of Forensic Medicine Hisham Abdel-Hamid said on Monday that the final report of the cause of Shams' death will take up to a month to be released. “The final report will reveal whether or not there was a medical error causing death,” Abdel-Hamid added. Shams' funeral was held on Monday in Al-Hamdiya Al-Shazliya mosque. If the death was proven to be due to medical error, Shams' death would be nothing new; the Forum for Development and Human Rights Dialogue (FDHRD) issued a survey regarding the health system in Egypt that stated that in 2007 nearly 280 patients died due to negligence. The survey revealed that 14 per cent of deaths were due to flaws in the anesthetic given to patients, 14 per cent were attributed to doctors' mistakes either during or after operations, and 72 per cent were due to inefficient nursing, electric power cuts and lack of essential equipment. In Egypt, according to the World Health Organisation report issued in 2012, spending on healthcare comes in third place in the budget of 12 per cent of Egyptian families after food and housing; 45 per cent of the population does not have health insurance. “Shams is a victim of medical negligence. Although it is not a new phenomenon, it's time to confront it and hold whoever commits a medical error accountable,” Sayed said.
