The Ministry of Health and Population announced on Saturday that it had performed 2,074,952 surgeries as part of the national initiative to end waiting lists and prevent new ones from forming for critical surgical interventions. The initiative, which started in July 2018, covers surgeries for heart, bone, eye, tumor, brain, heart, nerve, kidney, liver, and cochlear implant conditions. Hossam Abdel Ghaffar, the official spokesperson for the ministry, said that the ministry had received 164,244 calls from patients on waiting lists since the beginning of the project until February, with a 98.62% completion rate via the hotline designated for the initiative. He added that 73,783 cases had been followed up from July 2023 until February. Abdel Ghaffar said that the patients were assigned to hospitals affiliated with the initiative according to a central distribution system, to ensure that they received medical service as quickly as possible. He also said that the services of the initiative were completely free of charge, and the patient did not have to pay anything, as the initiative aimed to ease the suffering of those who could not afford it, and to perform urgent and critical surgeries with the highest quality and speed. Abdel Ghaffar highlighted the ministry's efforts to improve the performance of hospitals and provide the best medical services to patients, through continuous training of medical staff and equipping hospitals with the modern supplies and devices needed to perform surgical interventions. He also mentioned the ongoing development of the automated system for the initiative to facilitate follow-up and data extraction. The initiative has also helped to activate a unified electronic system, linking the entities that issue treatment decisions, whether at state expense or health insurance, based on the capacity of each hospital, with the option of transferring cases between the service providers.
