An account of the awful treatment my father received at Ain Shams Specialized Hospital
Content and trigger warming: death, hospitals, mistreatment
TLDR (even if I wish you would read this if you live in Egypt or if you have followed my father’s journey), MY FATHER’S STAY AT AIN SHAMS SPECIALIZED HOSPITAL
I checked my father into Ain Shams Specialized hospital on the 21st of July 2022. He was preparing to undergo a very important and potentially life saving surgery at that hospital within the week with a surgeon on whom I placed a lot of hope, especially considering his demeanor and respectful attitude when we first met with him. The surgery was never to take place. My father never made it that far.
On the 21st of July 2022, following an episode of already bad diarrhea, his blood pressure dropped dramatically. After he fell a couple of times at home and was disoriented, I decided to take him to hospital, thinking they would get him in shape for the surgery and then I could take him home and move on with the plan I had made to get him back to health with the help of an excellent caretaker I had newly hired.
We arrive at the hospital and are asked immediately for a downpayment of 120,000 EGP. Although it’s normal in Egyptian hospitals to ask for money before admission, what struck me here was the insistence we pay upfront for ALL his long term health problems which we couldn’t resolve in one go anyways as per the doctors orders. He needed two surgeries, one dependent on the success of the other and there was no need to pay everything up front. However, until we paid everything up front he wasn’t going to be admitted, unless the ER doctor changed the prescribed care. I didn’t have that sum readily available nor did I want to pay in advance for procedures without meeting the surgeons who would perform them when clearly he was in no state anyways to undergo anything. During that time we waited in the ER while he got weaker untill finally a doctor understood what happened, told us that my father absolutely had to be admitted and changed the prescribed care needed. They checked him into the ICU C.
During this process I was lucky enough to be advised by very competent doctors, notably my cousin who has extensive experience in ICU care in Egypt. When I told him that my father was checked into the ICU, he immediately told me that I had to everything I could to get him out of there as soon as possible as the risk of secondary infection, depression and psychosis were very high.
Acting on all the good, sound, advice I received and wanting above all to avoid ICU caused infection to my father, on the 22nd of July 2022, I showed up at the hospital gate at 12 pm, which apparently is the time at which rounds usually end. My cousin had, with great care and pedagogy, given me a list of questions to ask the doctor. They refused to let me in. I was able to call the unit from the reception kiosk and the nurse refused to pass me the doctor. I sat on the sidewalk for 15 minutes, called them again and the doctor responded, refused to answer my questions, yelled at me and hung up the phone.
I had a lot of determination at that point. I vowed to fight for my father and get him the best care. Little did I know that the hospital would wear down my will and determination to a thread and crush me completely.
The 22nd July 2022, at 5 pm, I head to the ICU for the normal visitation times. I discover that they treat ICU patients like prisoners and I can only see them through the window. When I ask to see my father briefly after visitation times as other family members did, the young na2eb doctor who had yelled at me in the morning, lied saying my father had requested no visits. I know this is a lie as my father is very anxious in hospitals and tended to call us at least 4 times a day during his previous stays. They let us in finally for 3 minutes and we were constantly supervised by nurses and security breathing down our necks.
The next day, my uncle received a call from an unknown number. My father had convinced someone to lend him a phone and called begging to be let out. The phone was presumably torn from his hands when he said this as the number hung up and never answered us again. It was at this point that I wrote the post complaining about the doctors and hospitals and asked for help which I later removed. It reached the ICU doctors and nurses who stopped being hostile and treated me with strained politeness. I removed the post because my father’s surgeon whom I will not name because he is innocent in all this, expressed concern at my publicly complaining about the hospital and hinted that he was reluctant to perform the surgery. I considered myself blackmailed into silence.
Things go blurry at this point. I no longer remember events day by day. We stayed at ICU C for a few more days but they banned in person visits, and I could only look through the window. I bribed a security guard to give my father notes from me which he answered. He was anxious. One day I arrived at ICU C and looked through the window and found his bed empty, the sheets stripped. I was seized with searing panick until a nonchalant nurse informed me that he was transferred to intermediate care. No one had bothered to tell me that he was getting better.
I went to see him in intermediate care and was happy because the one hour visit was in person. I could hold his hand and ruffle his hair, massage his feet. I noticed that day that he had a cough. I signaled it to the doctor who dismissed my concerns.
The next days he got worse and worse. The cough became a hacking, raging series of fits that turned his whole face blue. The doctors were wishy washy: “we are going to get a sputum culture” said one. “We have sent a sputum culture to the lab” said the other. “The culture takes 5 days to yield results” said a fourth, “The culture takes 7 days to yield results” said a fifth. We never did get the results of that culture.
On his last day at intermediate care, the doctor told me that he believed that my father had covid based on the clinical portrait despite, even if the PCR was still not ready. He used the words “cytokine storm” and said we were before the peak. My father was blue at this point and barely coherent. He didn’t want me to leave him yet I wasn’t allowed more visiting time. I performed a rapid COVID test on him while no one was looking and it came out negative. However I know that this doesn’t prove anything.
They moved him in the night to ICU B, which is where he died. In ICU B, the doctors said he didn’t have COVID, which was ultimately a good thing given that if he did they would move him and quarantined him in another hospital which apparently is absolutely abhorrent with even worse conditions. I was told he caught an unknown infection in the ICU. I discovered that many other families had seen their loved ones suffer the same fate and were in that horrible ICU with my father. They refused to give us his chest X-rays and CT Scans so we could ask for external opinions saying we would get them at discharge. We never did.
My father stayed a few days in ICU B. As I said, things have blurred in my head. I’m tired and worn and hurt, and I can’t remember things day by day. He got worse. Doctors met me behind a window at update time and read of a chart, impatiently, barely deigning to answer my question, and when they did, they did so in vague terms and constantly saying inshalla. One doctor hinted that I lacked the education necessary to understand medical information.
He got slightly better and we had hope. But on the 3rd of August 2022, his heart stopped at visiting time as we looked at him through the window. The doctor didn’t offer condolences. When giving us explanations, my sister asked her to speak louder, she looked my sister straight in the eye and continued on the same tone. They wouldn’t let us see him untill I screamed at shouted and said in a very loud voice that the infection was caused by them. The only person who showed us any sympathy was the janitor who led us in. They said they would leave him on artificial respiration as per protocol for two hours and then move him to the morgue. They moved him without telling us, even if we were waiting at the hospital wanting to walk that final walk with him. They acted as they had all along, without regards for the family, treating my father like an object, a commodity to profit from and discard.
The only place my father was treated with any respect was at the morgue. The مغسل, the man performing the Muslim ritual bathing of the body was extremely kind and respectful. It’s sad to know he was treated better in death than in life.
On one of the last days in intermediate care, he told me he dreamt he was riding his horse. Horseback riding was his favorite activity. I imagine him now, galloping in the desert, riding his Arabian pure bred horse مقصود (max), far away for the hell he endured with such bravery and dignity.
