A Cancer Hospital for the Red Sea Is Being Studied, and Tourism and Oil Workers Are to Get Housing in Hurghada and Ras Ghareb

A hospital for cancer patients in the Red Sea governorate is being studied, and a request has been submitted to open a faculty of medicine, Red Sea Governor Walid El-Barqi told journalists and media in the governorate, according to Sada El-Balad.

El-Barqi said the health sector's need for medical specialties is being examined because several specialties are short-staffed, and that a medical faculty would help produce those staff locally. No site, cost or timetable was given for either the oncology hospital — which the governorate does not currently have — or the faculty.

On housing and rents, the governor said the governorate is giving financial assistance to the neediest cases among widows and divorced women until suitable housing units are available. A rental agreement is in principle a matter between its two parties, he said, but the governorate is trying to take demand out of the housing market by providing homes for workers in the tourism, petroleum and energy sectors, starting in Hurghada and Ras Ghareb, while building on co-operative association land is accelerated.

The briefing also covered:

• Drinking water: desalination plants are starting in El Quseir, Safaga, Ras Ghareb and Shalateen, alongside small plants built by the private sector, with new plants being coordinated for Ras Ghareb, El Quseir, Safaga and Hurghada. Several are targeted to come into service before next summer.
• Sewerage: work continues on connecting the northern districts of Hurghada, with crews active in the Al-Nour and Al-Gawhara areas.
• Roads: internal residential streets are to be paved with interlock slabs.
• Floods: preparation goes beyond protecting buildings and roads to studying how rain and flood water can be captured and used as a water resource.
• Schools: maintenance work, with the governor pressing boards of trustees to help support each school's own needs.
• Civil aviation: the time it takes to obtain approvals is a file that needs treatment, and the detailed plan has to be finished before the governorate can secure full subdivision approval.

El-Barqi also said the Minister of Endowments would be contacted about lighting the courtyard of Al-Mina Mosque in Hurghada.

Hurghada News reported on 28 September that new desalination plants are being built in Hurghada, Zafarana, Safaga, El Quseir, Marsa Alam and Ras Ghareb, and on 1 October that eight pumping stations are to bring sewers to Hurghada areas that have never had them. The 'before next summer' service date is new detail.

For residents, the two items carrying the most weight are the cancer hospital and the worker housing — the first concrete answer the governorate has offered on rent pressure. Neither has a date, a cost or a location attached to it yet.