CAIRO: At least three percent of the public budget should be allocated to the health sector, said Magdy Yacoub, a professor of cardiothoracic surgery and a member of the 50-member committee tasked with amending the 2012 constitution.
In a Saturday interview with the “Dostor Baladna” talk show on the state-run al-Masrya TV channel, Yacoub said every citizen has a right to convenient healthcare and pointed out the” serious negligence” that nursing has witnessed during the last few years.
Yacoub said he admires the healthcare system in the UK where, unlike in the USA, poor and rich people enjoy equal healthcare rights.
He said that the constitution draft aims to provide “fair and convenient” healthcare system for everybody, said Yacoub.
A draft article discussing human organ transplants was “carefully discussed” in the committee, said Yacoub, adding it was necessary to legalize transplants to save the lives of “thousands of patients.” Al-Azhar and the Coptic Church voted for the article but required moral guarantees, he added.