Face off over veil

In recent years, a self-fashioned uniform for nurses has crept onto the corridors of several state hospitals. Nurses clad from head to toe in black or white niqab (face veil), with the two peepholes over the eyes covered in gauze, have become a common sight in some hospitals. Many times patients can only make out a pair of unsterilised thick gloves emerging from two cuffs attached to a shapeless garment administering medicine and other medical procedures.

These spectral "angels of mercy" -- as nurses are traditionally called -- began the uniform trend seven years ago, when nurses at a handful of hospitals in Kafr Al-Sheikh, Beheira and Sharqiya began wearing the niqab. Official figures show that nurses wearing the coverall veil have reached 35 per cent in many hospitals, going up to 50 per cent in others. But Minister of Health and Population (MOHP) Hatem El-Gabali will not stand for this trend, and has ordered an extensive enquiry into nurses wearing the niqab to evaluate the phenomenon.
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