No hospitals for the poor

2021

Country/area: Egypt

Organisation: Arab Investigative Journalism (ARIJ)

Organisation size: Big

Publication date: 13 Nov 2020

Credit: mohamed hamid

Project description:

We used open source to reveal the Egyptian government’s closure of more than 400 hospitals in poor areas, causing millions of Egyptians to suffer during the Covid 19 pandemic. We identified all hospitals in all villages in 26 Egyptian governorates, using available and open data, whether using Google Maps, which showed that all of these hospitals were closed, or turned into only emergency departments.

Impact reached:

= A number of civil rights activists have moved to demand that the government reopen these hospitals and save citizens from the Corona pandemic.
= Good reactions from citizens appeared after the investigation was published on social media.
= The Arab Journalists for Investigative Journalism organization said that a French newspaper has translated the investigation into French, and it will be published in the coming days.

Techniques/technologies used:

= We used Excel.
= And Excel Sheet Program.
= Google Map programs.
= We used a PDF to Word converter.
= We used a tool to collect data from Egyptian Central Agency files.

What was the hardest part of this project?

= The difficult thing was in the spread of the Corona Covid 19 virus, which made it difficult to move and go to the governorates to find out about the state of hospitals, but with some health instructions and precautionary measures, we were able to do so.

What can others learn from this project?

Take precautionary measures during this pandemic, and do not expose yourself to danger.
Learn to use technological tools and open source in preparing an investigation.
Not to rely on a single source or to be satisfied with the information provided by governments. Rather, it is necessary to research in depth.
Use of Google, which is an important source of information.