People on low incomes suffer from a major problem related to a lack of premature baby incubators in public hospitals, as well as the high prices of incubators at the private hospitals. This is due to nurses refusing to work in the state-owned hospitals because of low salaries and the insufficient incubators compared with rising rates of births. The Ministry of Health and General Authority of hospitals and educational institutes affiliated to the Ministry are responsible for providing hospitals with nurses and incubators. Graduating nurses must pass a period of service in governmental hospitals on qualification, but many prefer to pay a fine as a compensation so as to be able to work in private facilities. Dr Essam Tawfiq, director of Al-Galaa Hospitals noted that Minister of Health Dr Mostafa Hamed has provided the hospital, which is specialised in obstetrics, with 50 incubators to cope with increasing demand from Cairo, Giza and Qaliubia gorvernorates. However the problem still exists due to a shortage in number of qualified nurses to operate incubators and to work at neonates field though Al-Galaa Hospital contains a nursing school, but suffers a lack of nurses to work in the neonates division. Of the 45 incubators in the free neonates division at the hospital, only 25 ones are being operated due to insufficient nursing staff. In addition there are other ten incubators at economy division, but this number is not enough comparing to the daily number of new-born babies, Dr Tawfiq added. He stressed the importance of providing hospital with blood bags to meet the needs of mothers who constantly bleed while giving birth and sometimes dies through loss of blood. Former Minister of Health Ahmed Sameh Farid commented the incubator problem is associated with insufficient qualified nurses working in this field. Thus, there are dozens of incubators stored at Qasr al-Aini Hospital without nurses to operate them. Therefore the solution is creating the requisite number of nurses to operate incubators at a cost LE 120,000 ($179) for each one. Dr Farid added to Al-Messa official daily paper that there are many factors involved in nurses opting not to work in neonates divisions, such as the low salaries. In addition, the governmental establishment does not provide nurses with bonuses commensurate with their service and not equal to what is paid in such divisions in private hospitals. According to Dr Ali al-Gayar, gynaecologist at Al-Galaa Hospital, they have tried to overcome the shortage of nurses through contracting nurses and paying them further bonuses. He added that the hospital has 70 births daily and many cases are referred to other hospitals due to lack of incubators. Awatef Atef, a nurse in the free neonates division remarked that the monthly salary of a nurse is LE 250 and, after ten years of working in the premature birth division, the salary and bonus do not exceed LE800. Further, each nurse supervises six incubators, although the Ministry of Health stipulates each nurse should be responsible for only a couple of incubators. Samira Salem, an employee stated that her daughter was in an incubator in the economic division at Al-Galaa hospital four days ago and she paid only LE180, noting that the prices are reasonable compared to the private hospitals prices.
