Ain Shams University Hospitals in Cairo have opened a dedicated Qadam Sahih (“Healthy Foot”) room in the outpatient clinics of Demerdash Hospital, offering free prevention, early detection and wound care for people with diabetes. The room, supported by the Misr El Kheir Foundation with a donation from the National Bank of Egypt, adds to a growing network of free diabetic foot rooms in Egypt’s university hospitals.
What the Demerdash room offers
The room was opened by Prof Tarek Youssef, Executive Director of Ain Shams University Hospitals, and Prof Essam Fakhry Obeid, Deputy Executive Director and Director General of Demerdash Hospital. The hospital says the service puts prevention first, followed by early detection and reduction of risk factors. Patients who develop complications are referred on for treatment, dressings and medical supplies are provided free of charge, and follow-up runs through the outpatient clinics.
The service works with the vascular surgery department and the Faculty of Medicine. The hospital plans integrated care covering endocrinology, physical medicine and rehabilitation, electrophysiological testing, prosthetics and medical footwear.
A national initiative
Egypt’s Supreme Council of University Hospitals launched the Qadam Sahih initiative with the Sana3 El Kheir for Development Foundation under the presidential Hayah Karima (Decent Life) programme. It set up specialised rooms in 14 university hospitals to give free care to diabetic foot patients who cannot afford treatment. At launch the Council cited about 9 million Egyptians living with diabetes, around 10% of them at risk of amputation from foot complications.
The network is still expanding. In April, Sana3 El Kheir signed a four-year agreement with Al Mansour International Distribution, part of Mansour Group, to fund eight more rooms, two a year, in Assiut and Beni Suef governorates in Upper Egypt. Each room is to be equipped with:
- Doppler devices, wound-cleaning instruments, sterilisers, minor surgical sets and suction units
- consumables including gauze, bandages, antiseptics and blood glucose test strips
- computers and tracking software for a patient database
- awareness programmes on preventing diabetic foot complications and amputation
IMEA POD Perspective
Egypt has one of the largest diabetes populations in the Middle East and Africa, and the cost of repeated dressings, offloading and vascular assessment falls hardest on patients who cannot pay. Qadam Sahih removes that barrier and places foot care inside teaching hospitals, where the next generation of doctors and nurses trains. The Demerdash plan to link vascular surgery, rehabilitation, prosthetics and medical footwear is the multidisciplinary model that international guidance recommends. The open question is who delivers the day-to-day foot care. With few podiatrists in Egypt, screening, debridement, nail and callus care and footwear advice fall to surgeons, nurses and wound care staff. The rooms are a natural base for structured foot care training, and for a shared registry tracking ulcers healed and amputations avoided. As with Saudi Arabia’s Walk Safe programme, the real test will be whether outcomes are measured and published, not just how many rooms are opened.
Sources and further reading
- Demerdash Hospital: Opening of the Qadam Sahih room to support diabetes patients and prevent diabetic foot complications (Arabic), 3 September 2026
- Ain Shams University: The Supreme Council of University Hospitals launches the Intact Foot initiative
- Sada El Omma: Sana3 El Kheir and Al Mansour International partner on the Qadam Sahih initiative (Arabic), April 2026
- IMEA POD: Saudi Arabia launches Walk Safe national diabetic foot programme
- IMEA POD: Bengaluru Declaration calls for diabetic foot to be a world health priority