by
Brendon Nafziger, DOTmed News Associate Editor | September 09, 2010
Egypt
No used equipment sales here.
Egypt’s health care system is no stranger to controversy. This spring, Al Jazeera reported that state-owned hospitals were turning away patients in the face of almost $270 million in unpaid debts owed by the government. For its economic size, the country also spends little on health care, only around $14.2 billion, or 6.3 percent of the GDP, according to a recent Espicom estimate. Still, a sizable chunk of that is going toward medical devices. In 2008, Egypt imported almost half a billion dollars worth of medical equipment, according to Espicom. The only problem is, nearly all of that was new. In Egypt, companies must obtain approval from a branch of the Ministry of Health to release medical goods from customs – and it’s not happening if the equipment is used or refurbished, the U.S. Department of Commerce says. According to the agency, the ban took effect in Jan. 2002, when the country’s health ministry issued a decree to combat what was seen as “unscrupulous businesses taking advantage of inadequately informed customers in Egypt."
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