The Health Ministry has closed down operation theatres and intensive care units at the Nile Badrawi hospital following the death of two patients, reports Reem Leila The Nile Badrawi hospital in Maadi, owned by National Democratic Party (NDP) Policies Committee member Hossam Badrawi, is being investigated following the death of two patients undergoing routine surgery. Sixteen-year-old Ali Khalifa and 47-year-old Laila Mokhtar died on 21 October. Khalifa experienced serious complications following collarbone surgery. In the intensive care unit doctors noticed he was turning blue. He then experienced nervous convulsions. Khalifa's father, Hassan Khalifa, told Orbit TV's talk show Al-Qahera Al-Yom (Cairo Today) that he blamed the hospital for negligence. "This is supposed to be one of the best hospitals and this is what happened. We are not asking for anything except that this negligence be punished so there can be no more victims," he said. When Hassan Khalifa saw three patients returning from the operating room around the same time as his son and suffering the same complications he became suspicious and reported the incident to Cairo's prosecution office. The authorities immediately launched an investigation and confiscated 35 oxygen tanks from the hospital to test for levels of oxygen and nitrous-oxide. Mokhtar was undergoing surgery to remove a tumour from her womb. After surgery Mokhtar suffered the same complications as Khalifa. Immediately after the incident Minister of Health and Population Hatem El-Gabali formed a committee to investigate the two deaths. "We started the investigations but cannot draw any conclusions for official release," said Saad El-Maghrabi, chair of the investigation committee and head of the Health Ministry's Central Administration for Non-governmental Organisations and Licences. El-Maghrabi told Al-Ahram Weekly the committee had yet to complete its examination of the medical equipment, including oxygen and nitrogen canisters, used inside the operating rooms. Meanwhile, the general prosecution office is investigating the incident and interrogating the doctors who operated on the victims. "The doctors who conducted the surgery say the operations were successful and the convulsions occurred only after they were released from the operating room," says El-Maghrabi. El-Maghrabi confirmed that both patients died in the intensive care unit but did not give details on how long they survived their surgery. "The whole incident is under investigation and I am not in a position to provide details," he said. El-Gabali ordered the closure of all seven operating theatres at the Nile Badrawi hospital. He also decreed that no new cases could be admitted to the hospital's intensive care unit until the investigations into the death of the two patients are complete. "Shutting down all seven operating rooms, not allowing any new cases into the intensive care unit and prohibiting any surgery at the Nile Badrawi is a precautionary measure," said El-Maghrabi. "We are bringing in medical engineering experts from Ain Shams University and other places to examine the operating rooms." Doctors were able to save three patients who showed the same symptoms after surgery. Abdel-Rahman Shahin, official spokesman at the Ministry of Health and Population, said that of the 16 operations that took place on 21 October patients of the five conducted between 1.30pm and 3.30pm all developed complications. Alaa Bakri, medical director of the hospital, and owner Hossam Badrawi, were unavailable for comment. Newspaper reports have appeared, however, in which Bakri attributes the deaths to defective oxygen tanks, which he said the hospital buys from the Helwan Gas Company. Badrawi who is a key member of the NDP's policies' committee, yet the NDP has sent a strong message in the Hisham Talaat Mustafa case -- the billionaire property developer accused of complicity to murder Lebanese singer Suzanne Tamim -- that "no one is above the law". "Last year more than 77 private hospitals were closed because they did not meet not national hygiene standards," said El-Maghrabi
