The Deputy Minister of Health and Population conducted a field visit to Sohag Governorate, inspecting Tahta General Hospital and several health units to monitor the quality of medical services and enhance efforts in population issues and maternal and child health. During the tour, she reviewed the Sohag East Child Care Unit, describing counseling rooms as the ‘heart of health in Egypt,’ emphasizing continuous follow-up with mothers, protecting children’s health rights, and electronic and paper case registration. She also inspected pregnancy, dental, and pediatric clinics, directing the provision of additional oxygen devices for emergency departments, establishing an independent ultrasound room, and separating sterilization tools. She visited the Diabat and Hawawish health units, noting challenges such as the inactive adolescent clinic and poor use of tablets due to internet issues, stressing the need for prompt resolution to ensure service continuity.

At Tahta General Hospital, she inspected the neonatal care unit in preparation for dividing it into three levels according to medical standards, followed the implementation of the ‘Mother and Baby Friendly Incubator’ program and infection control procedures, emphasizing quick discharge of stable cases. She also inspected natural delivery, counseling, and breastfeeding rooms, praising the level of services and stressing accurate documentation and rapid emergency response. In a meeting with heads of obstetrics and gynecology departments, she discussed the high rates of cesarean deliveries and neonatal deaths, outlining ministry plans to digitize care services, implement the ‘Partogram’ program electronically, and launch the ‘Safe Start’ initiative to encourage natural births and reduce cesarean rates to 30% by 2027, alongside enhancing family planning services.

She also participated in a community meeting organized by the National Population Council in Akhmim city, attended by executive and religious leaders, where she highlighted the importance of the period from pregnancy to six years in building child health, stressing exclusive breastfeeding, premarital testing, and folic acid intake before pregnancy. She called for preventing child marriage under 18 years, reducing unjustified cesarean deliveries, promoting natural birth, and reviewed the role of the ‘Golden 1000 Days’ initiative in protecting child health and the ‘Her Childhood is Her Right’ campaign to combat child marriage and raise awareness of its risks.