In late 2024, Rasha Maher was rushed to Mansoura University Hospital after her water broke and a uterine rupture left her in critical condition, requiring urgent medical care.
Instead, she spent three days waiting in a delivery room before being transferred to a high-risk pregnancy ward. Rather than receiving the treatment she desperately needed, she says she was met with insults from medical staff and repeated requests for tips.
"The doctors, nurses and even the hospital workers treated me harshly," recalls Rasha, a journalist in her thirties.
"During gynaecological examinations, they would shout at me if I reacted to the pain, then simply leave me there and walk away."
To her horror, she found the bathrooms flooded with blood, discarded diapers, and insects.
Her ordeal mirrors a wave of public outrage sparked in June, when Egyptians woke up to a viral Facebook post by Dr Omnia Sweidan detailing the violence and harassment she says she witnessed women endure during childbirth while she was an intern at El-Shatby Hospital in Alexandria six years earlier.
Within hours, the post had attracted thousands of comments and shares, prompting mothers, doctors and healthcare workers across Egypt to recount their own experiences of abuse and neglect in maternity wards.
The following day, Dr Omnia was arrested from her home in Beheira governorate and taken to an undisclosed location. She appeared before prosecutors the next morning and, after hours of interrogation, was released on bail of around $400.
On 4 July, the Alexandria Economic Misdemeanour Court found her guilty of spreading false news, sentencing her to six months' imprisonment with hard labour, suspended for three years, and fining her EGP 20,000 (around $400). She was acquitted of a second charge relating to the misuse of a social media account, while a related civil claim was referred to a civil court.
Her lawyer, Mohamed Ramadan, told The New Arab the defence will appeal the ruling. He has previously rejected rumours about Dr Omnia's mental health as baseless and denied claims that her allegations were fabricated.
Following her arrest, many of the social media posts inspired by her account disappeared, but not before they had exposed a flood of testimonies from women describing traumatic childbirth experiences in Egyptian public hospitals. A global pattern Maltreatment of women during childbirth is a global phenomenon. A 2025 systematic review published in the journal Reproductive Health found that 54.5 percent of women worldwide experience mistreatment and disrespect during childbirth. The findings highlighted an urgent need for policies to ensure respectful and safe maternity care.
Similar patterns have been documented in Egypt. A 2025 study by Minia University found that 48 percent of women reported experiencing disrespectful maternity care.
More than half (56 percent) said their privacy was not respected, 77 percent reported physical abuse, and 52 percent said they were asked to pay tips.
The study also found that 38 percent were not given an explanation of medical procedures, while 15 percent said they were asked to clean their bed or mop the floor after giving birth.
In Egypt, the poor treatment is compounded by a host of other problems, as underfunded hospitals and underpaid staff grapple with too many patients and far too few resources.
For Rasha, the experience felt less like medical care and more like being treated as a lab rat. She recalls a senior doctor correcting a trainee after seven failed attempts to administer anaesthesia and shouting at staff as they struggled to insert a catheter.
When they were unable to close her wound, the senior doctor lost her temper. "The skin is like wood!" she shouted before pressing painfully on Rasha's chest, ignoring her screams. Rasha was eventually placed under general anaesthesia so the procedure could be completed.
When she woke up, the staff had failed to connect her pain relief device, causing her arm to swell. No doctor checked on her afterwards, forcing her to walk through the ward carrying her surgical drain and IV drip to ask for treatment herself, she shared with The New Arab. Eventually, she signed a waiver to discharge herself. At home, she discovered her wound had been stitched externally with wire and cauterised internally, leaving tissue damaged and preventing it from healing properly. The underlying fat tissue began to protrude from the wound, and she spent more than three months recovering. 'We are not insects' Mayada Ibrahim, a housewife in her twenties, says she was initially refused admission to Alexandria's El-Shatby Hospital , despite being full term in her pregnancy.
A doctor questioned why she was not giving birth at a private hospital with her regular physician. Mayada explained that she could not afford the cost of a private caesarean section (C-section). Instead of admitting her, the doctor pushed her away, insisting she still had a month left in her pregnancy, then told her that she needed a new ultrasound. When Mayada presented a scan taken just an hour earlier, it was dismissed, and she was told to get another. Only after complying was she finally admitted.
Inside, she says she found a ward in chaos, with women screaming in pain and doctors shouting back.
During a vaginal examination, Mayada cried out in pain. According to her, the doctor responded: "You're in pain? Why didn't you do this with your husband?"
She also says she was repeatedly examined by intern doctors and felt deeply humiliated as staff winked, whispered and laughed around her.
"We are human beings, we are not insects," Mayada told The New Arab . "We want supervision over the nurses, the workers and the doctors. They treat women like trash."
After undergoing a C-section, she says she was given no pain relief despite pleading, "The stitches are going to burst. I am so exhausted."
Later, hospital staff handed her newborn son to her husband before she had even been able to see him herself. A broken system Overcrowding is another recurring complaint. When Heba Samir, a lawyer in her thirties, was transferred to Kasr Al-Ainy Maternity Hospital in Cairo with a high-risk pregnancy, she found beds packed so closely together that patients struggled to breathe. Some women, she says, were even moved onto a balcony to make space.
Mahmoud Fouad, director of the Right to Medicine Foundation, says chronic overcrowding has become one of the defining features of Egypt's public healthcare system.
"The longest queue in Egypt today is not for the metro or train tickets – it is the hospital queue," he tells The New Arab. According to Mahmoud, the pressure begins the moment patients arrive. Overwhelmed security staff, overcrowded waiting areas and exhausted medical teams create an environment where tensions escalate quickly. Emergency reception units are often able to offer little more than oxygen or IV fluids before patients face long waits for further treatment.
To save limited resources, the government announced in March 2024 that only one type of medication would be dispensed per patient. Calls for reform Following the public outrage over Dr Omnia's post, Egypt's Medical Syndicate announced a dedicated hotline for complaints and said it was monitoring investigations by the Alexandria University Faculty of Medicine, which said it will investigate any reports supported by clear evidence.
Initially, the syndicate issued a statement denying any formal complaints and urged anyone with documented evidence to step forward. Facing backlash, it released a second statement affirming that patient dignity is a fundamental part of medical ethics.
"We have not received any official complaints so far, despite announcing numbers to receive them," Dr Abdel Moneim Fawzy, Head of the Alexandria Medical Syndicate and a professor at El-Shatby Hospital, told The New Arab .
Following the massive public outcry, the syndicate organised a workshop titled The Doctor's Oath and the Egyptian Woman's Right to a Safe and Dignified Birth .
Joined by the National Council for Women, human rights groups, and OB-GYN societies, the Syndicate agreed to form a joint committee to enforce World Health Organization standards in Egyptian hospitals.
The new recommendations call for a strict end to verbal and physical abuse, demand absolute privacy for patients, and advocate for allowing birth companions and psychological support.
However, some doctors have pushed back on the public criticism. Dr Abdel said internal investigations are underway at the university and the hospital, but dismissed the viral social media complaint, noting that it dates back to 2020, during strict COVID-19 precautionary measures, and asked , "Under such circumstances, would I harass a patient in labour?"
The professor emphasised they have received no ethical complaints and suggested the circulated stories might be isolated incidents that should not be generalised. He added they will soon discuss how to provide a more humane work environment for doctors, free from overcrowding and psychological pressure.
Dr Yasmine Abou El-Azm, an OB-GYN at Dakahlia Hospital in the Nile Delta, said that some claims circulating online may reflect misunderstandings of medical procedures.
"For example, the belief that a doctor chooses a C-section over a natural birth simply because it is easier is incorrect. A C-section after a natural birth is more difficult due to muscle hypertrophy, and it carries a higher risk of bleeding and uterine atony," she said. "Also, sometimes, what appears as violence has a medical justification," she added. "For example, pressing an elbow onto a woman's abdomen during labour may be necessary if, in extreme pain, she stops pushing or regulating her breathing, which can complicate delivery and put the baby at risk."
Even so, she stressed that verbal abuse, humiliation and physical mistreatment are never acceptable. "I don't have the right to belittle women's pain and complaints, but I am part of this system," Dr Yasmine said. Government doctors work in a harsh, underfunded environment, she explained, often earning around $150 a month, "though none of that justifies mistreatment." What must change Karim Mahmoud, founder of Public Health Catalysts, told The New Arab that women need to be educated about medical procedures so they know when something is inappropriate, adding that there is a severe lack of oversight of doctors' practices.
"Doctors often fail to listen to patients or explain alternative treatment plans. Unmarried women visiting gynaecologists also face social stigma and guardianship over their bodies, creating internal conflicts for the doctors treating them," he noted. He called for clear, publicised bylaws on patient rights, grievance pathways, and specific penalties enforced by the Medical Syndicate and the Ministry of Health, and rejected the idea of planting cameras in operating rooms due to privacy concerns, suggesting microphones and anonymous staff evaluations instead.
Mahmoud Fouad from the Right to Medicine Foundation said that what's needed is constant medical inspections, mandatory signed informed consent for procedures, and a review of the 2025 Medical Liability Law . Cameras in hospital corridors should monitor entries and exits without violating patient privacy inside delivery rooms, he added. 'Like animals in a zoo' The burden of proof remains heavy on the victims. Two years ago, Afaf Arafa, a 43-year-old bank employee, was admitted to El-Shatby for her second delivery after her water broke in her seventh month.
She told The New Arab she was transferred there due to health complications, and the hospital refused to let her companion inside.
She was forced to search for employees to complete her paperwork alone until she collapsed from exhaustion, she shared. In a ward crowded with torn curtains and beds stained with water and blood, she felt like she was on continuous display for intern doctors and consultants, describing the experience as being "like animals in a zoo."
"I was dying of pain in the delivery room," said Afaf.
"The doctor shouted in my face, 'You come to scream at me here? Why didn't you scream in your bedroom with your husband? You do the deed and come here to disgust us!'" Afaf recalled being told.
As her pain and screaming continued, nurses hit her legs and smothered her in front of the doctor, who did nothing to stop them.
She also recalled seeing a doctor hit another patient on her buttocks and thighs, a nurse slap a patient across the face, and another doctor hit a woman on her legs. She told The New Arab that she also witnessed severe mistreatment of newborns, describing how they were handled like dolls being thrown around. When she asked about her daughter, a nurse coldly replied, "You will see her at your house."
At home, she felt severe vaginal pain. She visited another doctor and was shocked to learn she had been given an episiotomy that no one at the hospital had mentioned. It was poorly stitched, causing tissue damage that required a second surgery to repair.
Afaf shared that the whole experience left her so traumatised that she has decided to never give birth again. What emerges from these testimonies is not a collection of isolated incidents, but a portrait of a healthcare system under strain — where overcrowding, underfunding and weak oversight collide with patients' most vulnerable moments.
From whistleblower allegations to women's accounts of childbirth trauma, the debate has forced uncomfortable questions into the public arena about dignity, accountability and care in Egypt's maternity wards.
As more stories surface, the question is no longer whether these accounts exist, but whether they will lead to lasting change in a system that women say has too often treated their pain as routine, and their voices as optional.