Feature: Egyptian hospital helps to raise cure rate of children with cancer

"57357" for Egyptians signifies hope rather than just a number. It is the name of the Cairo-based largest medical foundation for children's cancer treatment in the Middle East and Africa, which is currently celebrating the rise of survival rate from about 45 to 50 percent over the past decade to 74.4 percent in the most populous Arab country.

After passing through the main gateway surrounded by greenery, a visitor could hardly be admitted to the ocean-blue, greenish, glassy, circular building of the Children's Cancer Hospital Foundation (CCHF), or the 57357, without cleaning their hands with sanitizer liquid provided at each door of the eight-year-old, 260-bed hospital established by donations and civil society efforts in mid-2007.

"We reached a survival rate of 74.4 due to our sincere intention, scientific research and information collection whereas the international standards vary between 79 and 82 percent, which is our next challenge that we promise our children to achieve," Dr. Khaled el-Noury, 57357 Deputy Director General, told Xinhua.

The main door of the hospital leads to a circular reception desk around which parents are seen either carrying their mostly head-shaved children, moving them on wheelchairs or sitting near them awaiting their turn in the reception.

To the right side of the reception, a corridor leads to a kids' playroom with colorful walls covered by posters and stickers of cartoon characters like "Superman," "Spiderman," "Mickey Mouse," etc, where children with cancer enjoy playing video games, drawing with colored pens or playing with many toys provided in the room.

"I am four. I want a notebook for drawing," said Zeyad, while being carried by his veiled mother who noted that the boy used to suffer leukemia but he is now on the way to complete recovery.

"We started to come here since September 2014 and the service here is really amazing and completely free of charge; we did not even pay one pound," said Azza Wagih, Zeyad's mother, so gratefully.

"The hospital treats all equally without differentiating between the rich and the poor," the mother told Xinhua. "We didn't expect to have a place like this in Egypt and we hope to see its likes nationwide."

At the corridor of one of the wards, Nashaat Ahmed, a parent who came from Marsa Matrouh province near Egypt's northwestern borders, expressed happiness that his six-year-old daughter Rahma received "highest quality" treatment until she was completely cured of lymphoma.

"I had a pain here," said little Rahma, pointing at her neck. "I had a lymph node here that was dead, but now I feel better and can go back to play with my friends," the kid told Xinhua.

The CCHF or the 57357 hospital plans an expansion project to add more 300 beds and to establish a specialized building for post-radiotherapy and chemotherapy.

It has recently inaugurated a new branch with 50 beds in Tanta city of Gharbiya province, around 80 km north of the capital Cairo, as part of its expansion plan to cover the whole country.

The unique Egyptian hospital is not restricted to Egyptian children, but it also opens its doors to serve their peers from Arab and African states alike.

Nader Hegazy Mostafa, a Sudanese parent in his 40s, said that he started the treatment for his little son in the hospital in 2011 and that he comes regularly from Sudan since 2013 for a follow-up.

"My six-year-old son, Mohamed, had tumor at the adrenal gland that spread around the pelvis, but now he is cured and we come here for a follow-up," the man told Xinhua, noting the treatment and medicine were for free and that the hospital is "a role model" for all hospitals in the region.

At another corridor outside a reception ward, a physician asked a cleaning lady to come and remove a used tissue carefully from the floor without using her hands, which should be normal but it still shows how careful the hospital is about its sterilization system compared to many other hospitals in the country.

The 57357 is provided with an advanced clinical pharmacy in the ground floor that prepares the chemotherapy and antibiotics for the little patients carefully and professionally.

"As you can see, the mix here has about six laminar flows; each is operated by one person who prepares the medicine with a barcode containing the name, place and number of each patient," said chemical pharmacist Wasfy Ra'ed, while explaining the medicine-preparation process taking place behind the glassy closed labs.

The 57357 is supported by Egypt's renowned figures and celebrities like the chiefs of Al-Azhar Islamic institution and the Coptic Church, other senior men of religion, famous surgeons, politicians, actors, singers, etc, who all made TV advertisements to promote the hospital and urge donations.

"Our vision is very ambitious. We aspire to have 'cancer-free children' within the coming 10 years. We want children's cancer to become history. This is our dream," Dr. Mohamed Fahmy, member of 57357 board of directors, told Xinhua. Endit