By the Gazette Editorial Board PRESIDENT Sisi's recent directives for the upgrading of public and educational hospitals directly reflect the state drive to advance the medical and health services it offers to citizens through such establishments. Given that the former facilities are affiliated to and run by the Health Ministry while the latter are either managed by faculties of medicine or used by such faculties for tutoring medical students, the timing of the directives was important, having come as they did while the two ministries of health and higher education are engaging in an intensive effort to realise President Sisi's initiative for clearing the waiting lists of critical surgeries and also at a time when the state is readying to implement the new health and insurance law. Needless to say, public hospitals, especially including those operated by the health insurance authority, are the main provider of state-funded and state-supervised medical services to the largest segment of the general public; hence their key role as the actual deliverers of the state-sponsored healthcare to citizens. According to Presidency spokesman Bassam Radi, as many as 47 experimental hospitals located in all governorates will undergo upgrading in the new system's first stage the launching of which has already been instructed by President Sisi. As for the country's 110 educational hospitals whose medical and nursing staff are highly qualified, the envisaged upgrading is expected to focus on expanding their admission capacity. There is yet another highly-important dimension of those directives that the President gave at a meeting he called with Prime Minister Dr Moustafa Madbouli and the ministers of health and finance and other senior state officials last week. Implying considerable emphasis on promoting the capacity of public hospitals, the directives point to the keenness of the state on expanding social protection nets in such a manner as to cover the diverse needs of citizens in multiple sectors. As a matter of fact, the relation between medical care and social protection is not difficult to recognise. For a citizen actually enjoys social protection when he/she finds efficient medical care readily and easily accessible to him/her as well as to dependents – all the more so if the provider is the state. A third valuable dimension of those directives is that they came at a time when economic reforms are in full thrust and are proceeding both exactly as scheduled and in association with the very grand objectives of the state's overall vision for development. Such an understanding explains Finance Minister Ma'eet's significant remarks in TV statements that with the economic reforms well in place, the state can now channel the necessary allocations for health and education – admittedly the two sectors where the gigantic developmental effort now underway can deliver its aspired output.
