Plans to lease out grounds of Abbasseya Psychiatric Hospital draw opposition from hospital staff advocacy group

A plan for grounds belonging to the Abbasseya Psychiatric Hospital to be converted to commercial units rented out by the Military Production Ministry received pushback from the hospital’s staff last week. 

According to the proposal, which was put forward and approved in a September board meeting, 7,500 square meters of the public hospital’s grounds that overlook Ramses Street in downtown Cairo are to be rented out to commercial shops and franchises in a tender to be overseen by key military and security institutions. 

The Abbasseya Psychiatric Hospital Defense Front, an advocacy group comprising the hospital’s staff, came out against the plan in a statement issued last week, a copy of which Mada Masr obtained. The front criticized the commercialization of hospital grounds as a “waste of hospital land” and a “violation of patient rights” set out in the hospital’s bylaws, which stipulate that commercial projects should be undertaken only in the interests of patients. 

Hospital defense front coordinator Dr. Ahmed Hussein echoed these concerns in comments to Mada Masr, stating that any development proposal should serve patient care rather than focus on commercial interests.

According to the minutes of the September board meeting, a copy of which Mada Masr obtained, the tender selection process will be managed by either the Military Production Ministry, the Interior Ministry, or the Arab Organization for Industrialization, while the hospital would keep 40 percent of the income from the usufructuary lease.

While the hospital’s board has already approved the plan, the tender cannot go ahead without the Health Ministry’s final approval, Hussein told Mada Masr. Yet, he added that officials from the district’s administration had visited the hospital to measure the grounds, a step required before the plans receive final approval.

The advocacy group stated that they had reached out to the hospital management and the General Secretariat of Mental Health to request further clarity around the plans. However, neither body had replied. Hussein said in comments to the partisan Darb news outlet that the group “will go to the relevant state institutions, such as the presidency and the Cabinet in order to clarify the danger of renting a part of the hospital to operate commercial stores.” 

In its statement, the defense front also condemned the board’s efforts to convince them that the project would lead to an increase in their salaries. Instead of renting out the space for revenue, the advocacy group recommended a set of other projects that would better utilize the grounds to provide services to patients. Hussein told Mada Masr that he proposes establishing new fee-taking psychiatric services, such as a rehabilitation center to treat addiction among adolescents and teenagers. 

Hussein added that this is not the first attempt to exploit the hospital’s assets for non-medical commercial use, pointing to a precedent set during ousted President Hosni Mubarak’s time in office, when the government proposed taking over the hospital’s historical building and moving the hospital itself to an eastern Cairo suburb. According to Hussein, the government withdrew its plan after it faced opposition from the hospital. 

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