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Egypt Stories
Doctor and Imam Serve Egyptians at Improved Clinic
Imam Saad Mohammed Ali, 31, a religious leader in Manshiaat El Kanatar district of rural Giza, supported a U.S.-funded family planning program and urged women and their husbands to consider the service, which is not against Islam. Photo by Ben Barber/USAID
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GALATMA, Giza -- In the crowded village of Galatma, just an hour's drive away from central Cairo, a renovated clinic shows how Egyptians are improving their own lives - with the help of their own doctors, nurses and imams - and with U.S. assistance.
They get medical help, family planning and literacy training. But they also learn to work together to improve their clinic, raise funds for improved services and help themselves.
Saad Mohammed Ali, 31, is one vital member of this community and he helps manage the clinic. He is an imam, a Muslim cleric, and he helps raise funds, monitor cleanliness and encourage women and men to use family planning services.
"I am with family planning because it affects the social and economic status, and most important, the health of families," he said.
"After training, we got scientific and medical explanations about family planning," said the imam.
A nurse with her child at a U.S.-supported clinc in rural Giza, Egypt. Photo by Ben Barber/USAID
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"Then I found supporting verses in the Koran. I gave seminars in the mosques and in the clinic. We started to raise awareness of the women and they are receptive thanks God to this.
"At first, many were against family planning," he recalled. "But after a three day training for Christian and Muslim women together - and monthly meetings to discuss new topics such as mother and child health - most became convinced of the benefit of family planning."
He was especially moved when he saw that several, closely-spaced pregnancies affected the health of women and reduced the attention and care given to each child in the family.
They were so poor they could not send their children to school," said Imam Ali. This has a bad effect on the whole community. Our religion is against this."
He is studying for a Ph.D at Al Azhar University, the highest Suni Muslim theological institute in Egypt and the Muslim world. Al Azhar has long supported family planning, he noted.
"No imam is against family planning because it is part of the Koran," he said.
Dr. Hassan Said Wady, 55, general practicioner at the Galatma clinic in Giza Governorate near Cairo, described the U.S.-funded renovation of the facilities. Photo by Ben Barber/USAID
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But the imam's work on behalf of family planning is only one way the clinic has been improved. The exterior walls and rooms are bright, white and clean. Patents sit on benches waiting to see the doctor or the nurses and receive treatment.
In one room, women are learning to read from colorful picture books that would seem to be designed for children rather than adults. These literacy classes help women in their family and business affairs. In some families, children help their own parents learn to read.
Dr. Hassan Said Wady, 55, is the general practitioner at the clinic these past six years. "Everything is new here since the clinic was renovated under the development program," he said, taking a short break from the steady flow of patents coming to see him.
"Our professional staff had training -- the nurses, the lab technicians, the management and the clinic board. I got training in reproductive health and family planning."
A U.S.-funded women's literacy project is held at a clinic in rural Giza near Cairo. Photo by Ben Barber/USAID
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When he runs into difficult cases involving the heart, kidney and liver, he sends patients to a hospital where specialists are available.
Although it is close to Cairo where there are many jobs and economic opportunities, many people in the village are poor, so there is some malnutrition, anemia and protein deficiency. He also treats a lot of hepatitis, diarrhea and a few cases of typhoid.
The clinic has its own community board which monitors the facility to be sure it is kept clean and that there is enough medicine. It also raised funds for 10 pregnant women who could not afford pre-natal care. Now the board is building a dental clinic paid for by community funds.
Some of the villagers admitted that they were afraid the United States did not like Muslim people. "But when the American people came to the health unit to renovate the clinic," recalled the imam, "people started to change their mind to a better view of the United States."
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