A private hospital in New Cairo withheld the body of a patient it treated, demanding his family pay a bill of more than 1 million Egyptian pounds ($18,500) for 26 days in intensive care, according to Senator Amira Saber.
The case has renewed scrutiny of how Egypt regulates private hospital billing and whether families have any protection from abusive collection practices, after the Ministry of Health and Population said it cannot legally impose prices for private medical services even as lawyers and rights advocates say existing law gives it a role in setting fees.
In a Facebook post, Saber expressed frustration on Saturday over what she described as “appeals, phone calls and fights all day so the hospital would agree to let the man be buried.” She said she was “deeply shocked” by the hospital's bill, adding that “these prices for medical care are completely unreasonable.”
Hossam Abdelghaffar, the spokesperson for the Ministry of Health and Population, told Al Manassa that holding bodies until bills are settled is “followed in every country in the world,” but added that Egypt bars the practice. “It is prohibited by Ministry decisions and by the laws and ethics governing the profession” he said.
Lawyer Hany Sameh told Al Manassa that it is not legally permissible to detain patients or withhold their bodies over drug bills or medical fees, adding that reporting the incident to the police or prosecutors would result in recovering the body and holding those responsible accountable.
Sameh, who previously represented the family of a patient in a legal dispute with a private hospital over a similar incident, said the ministry also has the right to issue an immediate administrative closure order against a violating hospital. He added that such practices are sometimes repeated because patients’ relatives or the families of the deceased are not aware of their rights.
Sameh said that in a previous case, a private hospital demanded nearly 3 million pounds from the family of a deceased patient before judicial action was taken.
39,000 pounds a day
According to the bill published by Amira Saber, the patient stayed in intensive care for 26 days, from March 9 until April 4. The largest item was “medications” at more than 286,000 pounds; more than 11,000 pounds a day on drugs alone.
Bill for medical services provided to the deceased, April 5, 2026The combined cost of the lab and blood bank was nearly 219,000 pounds, while “medical supplies” came to about 106,000. The intensive care bed alone cost 100,000 pounds.
That brought the average daily cost inside the hospital to about 39,000 pounds ($720), fueling Saber’s calls for Health Ministry intervention to impose a “reasonable ceiling” to curb what she described as runaway costs.
She said, “Hospitals are making a fortune off pain, suffering and debt without any mechanism for accountability. Death should not lead to ruining entire households. Make profits, sure, but be reasonable.”
Saber criticized what she called the Ministry’s “major absence” in overseeing medical services at private hospitals, saying that “this is a wrong situation that must change.” She proposed setting a “reasonable profit margin” for medical services and a ceiling for each service.
We are investigating, but
The Health Ministry spokesperson said the ministry is currently verifying “the details of the incident” and will take action based on findings.
Commenting on Saber’s proposals, Abdelghaffar said there is no legal basis for the ministry to impose pricing on private hospitals, “If there is a law allowing price control, then we will set prices. But only bread and medicine are priced by law in Egypt.”
But Sameh cited Article 12 of the Medical Establishments Law, which states that “a committee shall be formed by decision of the minister of state for health, including representatives of the Medical Syndicate, the Ministry of Health, and owners of medical establishments. That committee shall set residence fees and the prices of services provided by the establishment, and the competent governor shall issue a decision to that effect, taking into account the cost elements approved at the time of licensing.”
Abdelghaffar undermined the absence of official pricing saying it does not amount to a crisis or a legislative gap requiring intervention, saying there is no country in the world that sets private medical services by law.
A full-fledged crime
By contrast, Alaa Ghannam, the right to health officer at the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, said the Health Ministry should not leave patients at the mercy of the private sector to control their fate, stressing the need for mandatory pricing across all private hospitals.
Ghannam considered the incident described by Senator Amira Saber to be “a full-fledged crime,” saying to Al Manassa that the hospital management violated the law and the constitution. He holds the Health Ministry responsible.
Ghannam said the government, through the Health Ministry, should bear part of the cost, asking, “Where did state-funded treatment go? Who can pay 1 million pounds?” He added that elderly pensioners are the most harmed, especially since many of them earn no more than 5,000 pounds. “How are they supposed to make do?”.
Saber said she rejects “flexible pricing” in the private medical sector, saying, “There is nowhere in the world where pricing is without a ceiling, without guidelines and without accountability.”
She called on the House of Representatives to question the Ministry, saying she had previously submitted a briefing request on the same issue that never saw the light. She appealed to parliament to “speak up and come up with a real solution to support during the hardest times a patient and their family can go through.”
