{"id":17197,"date":"2025-11-24T11:29:10","date_gmt":"2025-11-24T09:29:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/zawia3.com\/?p=17197"},"modified":"2026-10-24T15:03:08","modified_gmt":"2026-10-24T13:03:08","slug":"al-khankah-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zawia3.com\/en\/al-khankah-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Khanka Hospital: Beds Left Unused for Years While Patients Struggle to Find Care"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Ministry of Health and Population has recently intensified its inspection campaigns on private centres for addiction treatment and psychiatry, which resulted in the <\/span>closure<\/span><\/a> of 112 private addiction treatment facilities in 5 governorates. In the <\/span>Kerdasa<\/span><\/a> area of Giza Governorate 12 centres were closed; in the Mokattam district of Cairo the Health Ministry <\/span>closed<\/span><\/a> 16 addiction treatment facilities; and in the Abu El-Nomros area of Giza 8 centres were <\/span>closed<\/span><\/a>, alongside 25 other <\/span>centres<\/span><\/a> in Cairo and Giza. It also closed 5 unlicensed <\/span>centres<\/span><\/a> for addiction treatment and psychiatry in the city of 10th of Ramadan in Sharqia Governorate, in addition to 10 <\/span>centres<\/span><\/a> in the governorates of Alexandria, Aswan and Assiut.<\/span><\/p>\n

According to official data, all the violating centres were closed and those running them were referred to the Public Prosecution. The violations that led to their closure included operating facilities without licences, management by non-specialists, the use of medicines of unknown origin or expired medicines, and the absence of infection control and safety standards. According to the ministry, some of those running these centres are not doctors, and are sometimes people who have recovered from addiction, which poses a danger to patients.<\/span><\/p>\n

Coinciding with the closure campaigns, social media users circulated, in the last week of this past August, a <\/span>video <\/span><\/a>documenting the escape of a number of inmates from an addiction treatment clinic in the Mokattam district of Cairo, while the Ministry of Interior <\/span>announced<\/span><\/a> that the clinic did not hold the necessary licences and that it had arrested those running it and closed the clinic in coordination with the competent authorities.<\/span><\/p>\n

The incident raised questions about the fate of addiction patients who were inmates of unlicensed facilities, particularly in light of the increase in the prices of services at mental health and addiction treatment hospitals and the small number of beds available in the government hospitals affiliated with the General Secretariat of Mental Health, which does not match the rates of drug use and addiction in Egypt. The latest official <\/span>statistics<\/span><\/a> conducted by Egypt on the scale of addiction and drug use, for 2020, indicate that it reached 5.9% for drug use and 2.4% for addiction, while the proportion of addiction patients seeking treatment because of <\/span>synthetic drugs<\/span><\/a> rose from 8% in 2020 to about 50% in 2025, according to Dr Amr Osman, director of the Fund for Drug Control and Treatment of Addiction.<\/span><\/p>\n

The hospitals of the General Secretariat of Mental Health and Addiction Treatment have about 6,660 beds allocated to patients for inpatient treatment, and have an operational capacity of up to 5,616 beds in their affiliated hospitals, according to the <\/span>Ministry<\/span><\/a> of Health. The <\/span>Khanka<\/span><\/a> Mental Health Hospital accounts for the largest share of those beds, with 1,804 beds, according to the website of the General Secretariat of Mental Health. In second place in terms of number of beds comes the <\/span>Abbasiya<\/span><\/a> Mental Health Hospital, which has 1,069 beds, followed by the <\/span>Helwan<\/span><\/a> Mental Health Hospital with 331 beds, while the remaining beds are distributed among mental health hospitals in Egypt’s governorates.<\/span><\/p>\n

However, a statistical record of patients and beds at the Khanka Hospital for Mental Health and Addiction Treatment, addressed by the hospital administration to the Secretary-General of the General Secretariat of Mental Health and Addiction Treatment, a copy of which Zawia3 obtained, showed that the total number of beds in the hospital is (1,780), and that there are (61 beds) in Department 21 under maintenance and (36 beds) in the addiction departments under maintenance, which are deducted from the total, so that the actual number of beds is (1,683).<\/p>\n

The statistics, issued in September 2024, reveal that there are 80 empty beds out of 132 beds in the addiction rehabilitation department at the Khanka Hospital for Mental Health and Addiction Treatment, in addition to 61 empty beds out of 65 beds in the addiction detox departments, ten empty beds in the harm reduction unit and 23 beds in the dual diagnosis department, and that of the 1,780 beds in the inpatient department at the Khanka Mental Health Hospital, 428 beds are empty and 1,352 beds are occupied.<\/p>\n

A year after the statistics, the same beds remain out of service on the pretext of maintenance. In its daily report issued on 3 September 2025, a copy of which Zawia3 obtained, the Khanka Hospital for Mental Health and Addiction Treatment stated that the hospital’s actual bed capacity is 1,783 beds after excluding the beds undergoing maintenance in Department 21 and the addiction departments, the actual number of beds being (1,683).<\/p>\n

The report revealed that the total number of inpatients reached 1,308 patients, while 472 beds remained empty. The statistics showed that the free men’s department houses 544 patients, while the voluntary economy men’s department houses 79 patients, the compulsory economy men’s department 171 patients, the addiction rehabilitation department is occupied by 132 patients, the “detox” addiction department by 65 patients, while the harm reduction unit received 14 patients, the dual diagnosis department 55 patients, the women’s economy department 30 female patients, and the departments of the Placed Patients’ Division 690 patients.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

Recommended reading: <\/b>Shortage of psychiatric medicines in Egypt: a daily struggle for survival<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n

Neglected maintenance deprives patients of beds<\/b><\/h1>\n

In a related context, a medical source at the Khanka Mental Health Hospital tells Zawia3 that the hospital currently has more than 150 vacant beds out of operation in both the premium building and the dual treatment department, but they are out of service because of a problem with the sewage system and toilets in the building, which none of the previous or current administrations of the hospital or of the General Secretariat of Mental Health have worked to solve. The source explains that Department 21 at the hospital has been out of operation for 18 years and has 70 beds out of service, as a result of the halt in restoration work on the building.<\/span><\/p>\n

The source says: “Khanka Hospital is full of vacant beds. There is an entire building with about 120 empty beds, on the pretext that the bathrooms do not work, and this situation has continued for 6 or 7 years. There is another building that accommodates about 60 beds left unused, while most of the hospital’s departments have many vacant places, and of course this is apart from the ‘Committed Patients’ Division’, which cannot be touched. It is always crowded, because admission to it takes place through the International Cooperation Office at the Public Prosecutor’s Office, under a court ruling ordering committal for treatment until recovery, and the patient’s condition is reviewed once a year to decide on his discharge.”<\/span><\/p>\n

The source explains that keeping those beds out of service throughout these years has deprived many psychiatric patients and addiction patients of admission to the hospital’s inpatient department, and hospital employees used to tell their families that there were no vacant beds in the hospital. The source adds that the neglect of maintenance and restoration work has led to a waste of public money, as prices for inpatient stays at the hospital used to start at EGP 750 a month and range between 1,500 a month and 3,000 a month, before the Health Minister’s latest decision to raise the prices of mental health services, under which prices, according to the new regulations, range between EGP 150 and EGP 380 per night, depending on the class of accommodation.<\/span><\/p>\n

The source states that the nursing staff at Khanka Hospital number more than 1,100, while the psychiatrists number more than 100 doctors. There are also doctors in other specialties, such as internal medicine, dermatology, radiology, physiotherapy and dentistry, who work on a contract basis, while the hospital suffers from an acute shortage of social workers, psychologists and administrative staff.<\/span><\/p>\n

The source continues: “The administrative staff number about 54 or 55, which is a very small number for the size of the hospital. The number of social workers, who are a very important element in the hospital, ranges between 23 and 24 people, and it seems that no one has been appointed in this specialty for 15 years, and some of them are seconded from other bodies. As for the psychologists, they number only about four or three, and the hospital is in dire need of them, given the volume of work required of them, such as intelligence tests, psychological tests and psychotherapy sessions.”<\/span><\/p>\n

In the same context, a former administrative official at Khanka Hospital tells Zawia3 that the hospital’s departments number about thirty, as there are ten departments within the so-called “Committed Patients’ Division”. Some of these ten departments have been restored and upgraded, while others remain in their old condition. This division alone is affiliated with the Ministry of Interior, because it contains patients committed by court order after committing murder or rape as a result of their mental illness, who are placed in the division until they recover. As for the remaining departments, which number about twenty, each single department extends over a vast area that includes a large garden dating back more than 120 years.<\/span><\/p>\n

The former official, who declined to be named, reveals that Department No. 21 is the last department in the hospital and has been abandoned for about 20 years, or more. In 2016, the contractor was preparing to replace the ceramic tiles and renovate the sewage network, utilities, bathrooms and so on, but the restoration work stalled and it has remained closed until now, even though the capacity of this department exceeds 70 beds, meaning that it is a hospital in its own right. <\/span><\/p>\n

He says: “In fact, any department at Khanka Hospital exceeds in capacity some hospitals, such as Heliopolis Hospital at the airport, whose total capacity is only 76 beds, while we have a single department with a capacity of 70 beds, which is effectively an integrated hospital, and the human resources are available to operate Department 21, which is still under development.” <\/span><\/p>\n

The former official reveals that the dual treatment department, Department No. 4, remained under development work for 7 years; then the contractor died and the work was assigned to another, and the project faced administrative problems and many delays until it was opened about two years ago. He notes that the cost of treatment there is at least EGP 3,000 or EGP 3,500, and the cost is expected to rise with the new regulations.<\/span><\/p>\n

He adds: “The closed Department 21 has nothing to do with addiction treatment, but it is a department that could be operated as a centre for treating addiction among women, or addiction among adolescents, because nationwide there are not enough places to admit patients under the age of 18. These are subject to Article 12, under which they have a guardian, whether the father or the mother, or a guardianship decision in the case of an orphan. And while the life of an adolescent addiction patient outside is in danger, most mental health hospitals do not accept him, with the exception of Helwan Hospital and Abbasiya Hospital, which have a department dedicated to adolescents (for inpatient admission and not only for outpatient clinics), and there may be a similar department at Maamoura Hospital.”<\/span><\/p>\n

According to the website<\/a> of the General Secretariat of Mental Health, the Khanka Mental Health Hospital in Qalyubia Governorate was established in 1912 during the reign of Khedive Abbas Helmi, in a desert area on a site of 570 feddans, of which approximately 171 feddans now remain within the hospital’s actual area. It was annexed to the General Office of the Ministry of Health on 21 September 1997 under Presidential Decree No. 331 of 1997, and then annexed to the General Secretariat of Mental Health on 21 January 1998 under Health Minister’s Decree No. 32 of 1998.<\/p>\n

The hospital comprises 20 departments, divided into 15 psychiatric departments for men outside the Committed Patients’ Division, 4 men’s addiction departments and a psychiatric department for women, in addition to 10 departments of the Committed Patients’ Division; these are the departments specialised in treating patients committed by order of the judicial authorities who committed crimes while under the influence of mental illness, after their examination at the Abbasiya Mental Health Hospital. The hospital’s operational capacity is 1,804 beds, and the hospital provides a number of services to patients from outside the hospital, comprising clinics for (addiction, psychiatry, harm reduction, viruses, community medicine, and disability certification examinations for patients with intellectual disability and autism), as well as standard radiology, ultrasound and ECG services, in addition to the services of the brain rhythm regulation unit.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

Recommended reading: <\/b>Sharp increases of up to 900% in psychotherapy fees: is Egypt backing away from free mental health care?<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n

<\/span>Limited spending on health<\/b><\/h1>\n

<\/span>Mahmoud Fouad<\/b>, head of the Right to Medicine Association and a former member of the board of directors of Khanka Hospital, explains that about 35% of the beds in mental health hospitals in Egypt are at Khanka Hospital, and that it holds about 300 people who have recovered from mental illness but are still at Khanka Hospital under the Mental Health Patient Care Law No. 71 of 2009, because their families handed them over to mental health hospitals many years ago. After they recovered and wished to leave, the families’ place of residence could not be traced or the families refused to take the patient back, which forced the hospital to keep them inside, and consequently they occupy a large number of beds.<\/span><\/p>\n

The head of the association notes that families seeking treatment for their children who are addiction patients can turn to the Fund for Drug Control and Treatment of Addiction affiliated with the Cabinet, the Ministry of Social Solidarity, or the government hospitals affiliated with the General Secretariat of Mental Health. However, the rise in the cost of examinations and tests to more than EGP 1,000 has become a major obstacle to patients’ admission to these hospitals, in addition to a major shortage in the number of beds in them and the weakness of the budget allocated to mental health. He explains that the real crisis lies in limited spending on health, which does not exceed 3% of the general budget, which undermines efforts to treat addiction and leaves patients vulnerable to exploitation.<\/span><\/p>\n

Fouad stresses that addiction treatment centres in Egypt are undergoing a rapid and unregulated expansion, noting that the recent inspection campaigns revealed large numbers of unlicensed centres, as happened in El-Ayat, where six violating centres were found against only four licensed ones, and in Obour, where five licensed and five unlicensed centres were found. He considers that this phenomenon reflects the growing demand for treatment as a result of the wide spread of cheap synthetic drugs such as crystal, shabu and ice, which have become more common than hashish and tramadol because of their low prices.<\/span><\/p>\n

He tells Zawia3: “Drug use is no longer confined to marginal groups, but has extended to include university students and employees, as confirmed by the proportions of those dismissed from work because of surprise tests. The value of recent seizures in some cases has reached hundreds of millions, which is evidence of the enormous size of the market and the high demand.”<\/span><\/p>\n

Fouad criticises the reliance of some private centres on unprofessional practices, such as employing non-specialists and cramming patients into narrow rooms resembling prison cells, stressing that many of them are run as commercial activities whose only aim is profit, in the absence of effective oversight. <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Recommended reading: <\/b>The collapse of addiction treatment in Egypt: the methadone crisis exposes the flaws of harm reduction units<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n

Negligence, patient escapes and alleged thefts <\/b><\/h1>\n

At a time when the Khanka Mental Health Hospital suffers from wasted resources and neglected maintenance, a source tells Zawia3 that thefts recur inside the hospital because there is not a sufficient number of security staff and most of them are elderly, pointing to previous incidents in which some psychiatric patients escaped.<\/span><\/p>\n

On 10 February last, Khanka Hospital witnessed the escape of a psychiatric patient between 11 am and 1 pm, who took advantage of a power cut. He had entered the hospital on 13 January after being diagnosed with schizophrenia with a degree of intellectual disability, according to what media outlets reported earlier, and as a former official at the hospital confirms to Zawia3.<\/span><\/p>\n

Information contained in Egyptian newspaper reports indicates that incidents of patients escaping from the Khanka Mental Health Hospital have recurred over past years, with some cases dating back to 2008, 2012 and 2014. In July 2008, three patients accused in murder and indecent assault cases escaped from Khanka, and the hospital administration, with the help of the police, succeeded at the time in returning two of them to the hospital, while the third patient, Mohamed Hassan Abu El-Naga, who had entered the hospital after being diagnosed with undifferentiated schizophrenia following his indictment in a premeditated murder case in 2005, escaped. In August 2012, a psychiatric patient with undifferentiated schizophrenia, committed to Department 9 (Offenders) at the hospital by a decision of the South Giza Court, named \u201cAhmed B. A. M.\u201d, aged 31, escaped, and the nurses responsible for the department were accused of causing his escape; police report No. 971 (administrative) of Khanka Police Station for 2012 was filed over the incident. The incident recurred in March 2014, when Saadallah Abdel Ghani Tayel escaped; he had been committed to the hospital under a final committal decision by the Alexandria Court of Appeal after he was acquitted in case No. 1936 of 2011 (felonies, Wadi El-Natrun), in which he had been accused of attempted murder.<\/span><\/p>\n

Our sources report that a surprise inspection campaign visited the Khanka Mental Health Hospital on 21 August last, headed by Dr Peter Wagih, Assistant Minister of Health for Curative Affairs and supervisor of the Central Administration of Mental Health, accompanied by a number of leaders of the Central Administration, and that he directed criticism at the hospital administration.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, local newspapers<\/a> revealed that a warehouse belonging to a catering company contracted with the Khanka Mental Health Hospital was the target of a theft, inside a warehouse rented from the hospital administration and guarded by a security company contracted with it, last August, which resulted in the loss of foodstuffs from the food allocated to inmates’ meals estimated at between EGP 250,000 and EGP 300,000.<\/p>\n

 <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

At the same time, the General Secretariat of Mental Health <\/span>announced<\/span><\/a> that <\/span>Dr Mohamed El-Tayeb, Deputy Minister of Health and Population, gave directives to reinforce medical staff in vital specialties such as anaesthesia and internal medicine, and to increase the number of pharmacists, nursing staff and dentists. He also stressed equipping hospitals with modern medical devices and non-medical furnishings, while ensuring the availability of a strategic stock of medicines and medical supplies to provide excellent care to patients, developing the infrastructure and accelerating digital transformation projects, including the creation of a unified medical file for patients in all mental health hospitals, to ensure the accuracy and quality of services.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Recommended reading: <\/b>The methadone crisis: what lies behind the appearance of ketamine in the blood of harm reduction patients?<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n

Khanka: a series of violations and abuses<\/b><\/h1>\n

MP Sanaa El-Saeed of the Egyptian Social Democratic Party had previously submitted, on 24 April last, a request for a <\/span>briefing<\/span><\/a> addressed to the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Health, concerning what she described as a state of administrative imbalance that the Khanka Mental Health Hospital is going through.<\/span><\/p>\n

The MP asked about the reasons for the General Secretariat of Mental Health’s silence regarding these abuses, and demanded clarification of the position of the National Council for Mental Health and its oversight role in such cases, stressing the need for urgent intervention to correct the situation and protect patients and their rights, and demanding that the briefing request be referred to the Health Committee of the House of Representatives to discuss it and take the necessary oversight and legislative decisions.<\/span><\/p>\n

This was not the first time the hospital had faced accusations of mismanagement and of violations and abuses. Previously, 10 patients held at the hospital, committed there in implementation of judicial decisions and rulings, <\/span>died<\/span><\/a> during the period from 1 August 2015 to 10 August 2015 because of gross negligence, which prompted the Administrative Prosecution Authority to refer 34 defendants from among the hospital’s officials to urgent trial, including the former director of the Khanka Mental Health Hospital, two deputy directors of the Khanka Mental Health Hospital, four doctors at the hospital, the head and deputy head of the hospital’s nursing department, 23 members of the hospital’s nursing staff, and the head of the hospital’s patient affairs department and an employee in the same department.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Recommended reading: <\/b>Khanka Hospital: beaten patients, fake doctors and administrative corruption<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n

Presidential directives to develop infrastructure <\/b><\/h1>\n

In May 2023, a <\/span>committee<\/span><\/a> of the National Council for Human Rights, which visited the hospital at the time, recommended continuing work on developing the infrastructure of Khanka Hospital. In August of last year, Dr Khaled Abdel Ghaffar, Deputy Prime Minister for Human Development and Minister of Health and Population, <\/span>directed<\/span><\/a> that a plan be drawn up to develop the Khanka Mental Health Hospital into the first integrated medical city for mental health, addiction treatment and the elderly, to include all curative and preventive services and oncology treatment alongside mental health and addiction treatment services, with a total capacity of 1,800 beds, of which 300 beds are for curative and preventive services, and two linear accelerators for oncology treatment, in addition to 1,500 beds for mental health services. The minister at the time also ordered a study on establishing an emergency hospital to provide all advanced medical services to patients without the need to transfer them to surrounding hospitals. <\/span><\/p>\n

Last September, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi gave <\/span>directives<\/span><\/a> to expand the establishment of mental health facilities and support the state-funded treatment system, and tasked the government with starting the construction of the \u201cSakina\u201d Hospital for Mental Health and Addiction Treatment in New Alamein City, speeding up the completion of the development of the Khanka Mental Health Hospital in Qalyubia Governorate, and establishing medical centres for extended stays for patients, the elderly and people with special needs.<\/span><\/p>\n

Despite the intensive campaigns waged by the Ministry of Health to close unlicensed addiction treatment and psychiatric centres, and the state’s directives to develop mental health infrastructure, the reality of mental health hospitals remains weighed down by crises, from a shortage of beds and neglected maintenance to a lack of specialised staff and high treatment costs. <\/span><\/p>\n

And while demand for addiction treatment services is growing amid the wide spread of synthetic drugs, mental health hospitals still suffer from weak funding and oversight and an accumulation of administrative abuses, which leaves the fate of thousands of patients and people in need of treatment suspended between the chaos of the private sector and the faltering of the government sector, pending radical reforms that restore their right to safe and sustainable health care.<\/span><\/p>\n

Editorial correction: The first version of the report stated that of the 1,780 beds in the inpatient department at Khanka Hospital, 428 beds were empty and 1,352 beds were vacant; the correct figure is that the 1,352 beds are occupied, as the sum of the two figures equals the total number of beds according to the hospital’s statistics.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The addiction treatment file in Egypt is turning into a complex scene in which campaigns to close private centres overlap with government hospitals that have vacant beds that do not work, and with patients searching for a place for treatment who find only waiting lists, or unlicensed centres without oversight<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":19420,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[410,413],"tags":[],"kateb":[1550],"class_list":["post-17197","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-investigations-en","category-society-en","kateb-aya-yasser"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/zawia3.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/khanka-idle-beds-2025.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zawia3.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17197","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zawia3.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zawia3.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zawia3.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zawia3.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17197"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/zawia3.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17197\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24049,"href":"https:\/\/zawia3.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17197\/revisions\/24049"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zawia3.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19420"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zawia3.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17197"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zawia3.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17197"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zawia3.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17197"},{"taxonomy":"kateb","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zawia3.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/kateb?post=17197"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}