The World Bank Group grants $ 75 million to develop five hospitals in Upper Egypt, as the Egyptian Ministry of Health started undertaking the improvements. Parliamentary sources told Daily News Egypt that the grant is specified for basic hospitals that serve as the first line of defence in the medical care system in Minya, Assiut, Sohag, Qena, and Aswan. A delegation from the parliament's health committee visited several hospitals in Upper Egypt last week to inspect the quality of the services provided to citizens. The sources described the service level in the five selected hospitals as "extremely low" and in dire need of modernisation, noting that their current infrastructure is dilapidated, affecting the service quality. Minister of Health Ahmed Emad El-Din vowed to the committee that he would provide a plan to develop 470 integrated hospitals throughout Egypt, without laying out a clear timetable of implementation. The media spokesman for the Ministry of Health, Khaled Megahed, said that the ministry intends to develop a number of basic hospitals in Upper Egypt over the next period. The health committee is hoping to raise the allocations to comprehensive health insurance from 7.8 billion to 10 billion Egyptian pounds in the next fiscal year. Source: Daily News Egypt
