Royal Decree-Law 7/2018, of July 27, on universal access to the National Health System, guarantees the right to health protection and health care under the same conditions to all people who are in the Spanish State, recognizing as holders of the right to health protection and health care people with Spanish nationality and foreigners residing in Spain. By separating the recognition of the right to health from the condition of being insured, universal health coverage was recovered. And I say recover for the groups that were excluded by Royal Decree-Law 16/2012, from urgent measures to guarantee the sustainability of the National Health System and improve the quality and safety of its benefits, and that now had coverage again. Although, for that matter, I could also say that we recovered what they already had in Ancient Egypt, because they already had public and free Health Care.
Egyptian society, with the divine pharaoh at the forefront and the chaty or vizier at his side, was a complex political organization, perfectly hierarchical and structured, and full of administrative, military and religious positions. And there was not only a central administration, since Ancient Egypt was territorially structured in administrative divisions (nomos ) with their corresponding officials. Which greatly increased the number of payrolls that Papa State had to pay and the mouths that had to feed the udders of the Nile.
One of the groups integrated within this mammoth organization was that of doctors (sunus ), whose work was governed by a strict organization chart always controlled by an omnipresent state that decided from the place where to practice to the specialty. Herodotus already wrote about the degree of specialization...
each doctor treats only one disease, not several
They had “eye doctor ”, «tooth doctor «, “womb doctor ” or the “guardian of the anus «. This last specialist, similar to our proctologist, inserted a hollow rod into the patient's rectum, filled it with water and blew to do an enema, like an enema.
In addition to deciding the specialty, the state determined the employment destiny:it could be assigned to a place, such as a temple or a town, or also to a collective, an expedition, an army unit or the workers who build a pyramid. And I say workers, not slaves, because the pyramids were built by free paid workers:some full-time (specialized as stonemasons, masons, carpenters...) and others part-time, normally peasants who during the floods of the Nile could not work in the countryside and were hired to work on the pyramids. Logically, in the pyramids, due to the type of work, the most demanded doctor was the traumatologist, who treated dislocations, fractures and injuries.
So, in one way or another, all Egyptians were assured of healthcare.
And free?
The state took care of the doctors' land, which, on the other hand, shouldn't be anything to write home about. We do not know if they charged by agreement and professional category or by patients treated. What we do know is that, except for those who occupied the highest steps in their hierarchical organization, they were paid less than a scribe or a wet nurse. According to the papyrus from the time of Ramses III that is preserved in the Egyptian Museum of Turin, relating to the construction of a pyramid, the doctors posted here were paid 22 must of copper and a nurse 30.5. In addition, and also according to this document, the doctors issued sick leave reports, as evidenced by the annotations made to justify absences from work:scorpion sting, bone fractures... Within these justified reasons there are others, more... rare, because making beer for a celebration, drunkenness or having received a beating from the woman in a conjugal argument, were reasons that justified absences from work.
For having, they even had moscosos (days off that certain groups of workers and officials have agreed), five specifically. The Egyptians divided the year into twelve months of 30 days (360) and three seasons of 4 months (inundation of the Nile or Akhet , seed or Peret and gathering or Shemu ), beginning the year with the beginning of the Nile floods. A year of 360 days made the Nile floods a few days earlier each year, since the movement of the Earth around the Sun lasts 365 days. And it is not a minor problem when your economy is based mainly on the flooding of the river. So, they decided to pull the gods to "create" five new days which they called epagomenos .
According to legend, Geb (Earth) and Nut (Heaven) had married without the consent of their father Shu (Air). As punishment, he came between them so they couldn't be together. But it was late, because Nut was already pregnant, so Shu forbade every month of the year to allow Nut to give birth. But Thoth, the god of wisdom, took pity on them and helped them. In order not to defy Shu's prohibition, he challenged Khonsu (the Moon), in charge of measuring time, to play senet:each game won by Thoth would add one more day to the calendar. By winning 5 games in a row, five days were added and Nut was able to give birth to her children:Osiris, Horus the Elder, Seth, Isis and Nephthys.
And in this very original way, the calendar went on to have 365 days, and those 5 days were holidays.