As I write this, the historic events of the last 18 days in Egypt have just come to a climax with the departure of Hosni Mubarak. While the Egyptian revolution was largely peaceful, it was unfortunately not bloodless. The news reports have been contradictory and somewhat incomplete, but according to various reports, more than 5,000 people have been injured. The United Nations estimated recently, based upon unofficial reports, that 300 people had died during the riots and protests. Most injuries have been brain trauma from bullets, depression fractures from large stones, ruptured eye globes, and liver lacerations caused by knives and other sharp tools wielded in street attacks.
Dr. Yasmin Galal, a pediatrician who practices in several different Cairo clinics, told ABC News that primary care units were, “lacking basic supplies at the moment and were calling for help, like alcohol, Betadine, needles for stitches, and gauze. People are trying to deliver the needed medical supplies, but are being prevented and terrorized by thugs with no one protecting them, not the police, not the military.” It’s amazing how no matter what the specialty of the physician, in times of need, everyone comes to the aid of the people.
These reports reminded me of an incident I witnessed last year when I went to work at a hospital in India. I was visiting a local farm when a worker’s leg got caught between a tractor and a trailer as he was adjusting the hitch. He suffered lacerations to his right calf. The wound was roughly a half-inch deep. We attempted to treat his wound, as it was oozing blood, with very limited supplies of old alcohol and gauze that we found in the tractor’s glove box. We held pressure for the 30 minutes it took to drive the tractor to the nearest clinic. There he was sewn up in a crude fashion. It wasn’t easy, but he recovered, and the last I heard he was still working on the same farm to keep his family fed.
That was just one person and one person’s relatively minor injuries, but without proper supplies it turned into a major problem. How much worse must it be in Cairo, with thousands of injuries and relatively few medical personnel to assist?
It makes me feel fortunate to be practicing medicine in the comparatively luxurious and well-equipped environs of a modern medical center in the United States. I hope and pray that Egypt can become the peaceful, accepting, and culturally rich nation that it has been in the past.