CAIRO - health authorities plan to build a hospital for the nation's 325,000 Alzheimer’s patients modelled after the world's most advanced and specialised health facilities in treating this disease, Governor Abdul Azeem Wazir has said.
The hospital, which will occupy an area of 2,800 square metres, will be built in a joint project by a Cairo-based charity association run by renowned female Islamic preacher Ablaa el-Khalawi, Wazir added.
The hospital will be set up in a suitable district close to the Egyptian capital's centre, he said, adding that the Cairo Governorate and el-Kahlawi's Good Deeds Association would incur the cost of building, equipping and staffing the facility, whose services will be free of charge.
However, Governor Wazir refused to provide other details, such as where exactly such an expensive project would be located in Cairo, or the hospital's design or bed capacity.
He said that the planned hospital included an inpatient and outpatient clinics, which would provide good quality free services to Alzheimer’s patients in the Greater Cairo area and nearby governorates.
Wazir's announcement of the project comes at a time when neurologists have warned that there are 325,000 Egyptian Alzheimer's disease patients whose number is expected to increase by nine per cent in 2015. In order to combat the disease, which causes memory loss, the doctors demanded that the Ministry of Health launch a comprehensive Alzheimer's disease awareness campaign and establish a hotline to give counselling and support to the patients and their families.
Although the Ministry has made progress in breaking the social stigma of Alzheimer's disease, it still has a long way to go, they maintained.
The disease is described as a progressive mental deterioration that can occur in middle or old age, due to generalised degeneration of the brain. It is the most common cause of premature senility.
