Doctor of the poo

He could have owned mansions. Instead he charged 30 cents.

For over 50 years, one Egyptian doctor treated the poorest of the poor for the price of a falafel sandwich — and turned down a fortune to keep it that way.

His name was Dr. Mohamed Mashally. In Tanta, everyone just called him "the Doctor of the Poor."

He was born in 1944 in a small Beheira village, the son of a teacher. Not wealthy. Not connected. Just determined.

By 1967 he'd graduated from Cairo University's medical school, trained in internal medicine, pediatrics, and the fevers that hit poor villages hardest.

Then came the moment that redirected his entire life.

Early in his career, a young boy with severe diabetes came to him. The child needed insulin. His mother had only enough money for the family's dinner — not both.

The boy, believing he was a burden his family couldn't carry, harmed himself in despair. He lost his life in Mashally's arms.

Mashally never forgot it. He made a vow that day.

"I pledged to God I would not take a penny from a poor person."

So in 1975, he opened a clinic in Tanta. His fee? Five Egyptian pounds. Roughly 30 cents.

When costs rose decades later, he raised it — to ten pounds. Sixty cents. That was as high as he'd ever go.

And if you couldn't pay? He waved you in anyway. Often he bought your medicine himself.

He didn't stop at one clinic. He ran three, moving between them, examining patients from morning until the evening prayer, then eating quickly and heading out to see more.

Even in his seventies, he worked 12-hour days and saw 30 to 50 patients before he rested. Who does that at 76?

The world tried to reward him. A wealthy donor offered him a grand new clinic on Tanta's most famous street.

He said no.

The only gift he ever accepted was a stethoscope worth about 80 pounds, from a young admirer in the UAE. That was enough for him.

"I don't want a ten-meter car or a suit worth a million," he once said. "A falafel sandwich is enough."

He explained his refusal simply: medicine, to him, was a humanitarian calling — never a business.

His father had asked one thing of him before passing: care for the poor. Mashally kept that promise for half a century.

He treated an estimated millions of Egyptians who could never have afforded care anywhere else.

On July 28, 2020, at age 76, his heart gave out. He passed away at home in Tanta, still working at his clinic until his final days.

Thousands filled the streets for his funeral procession in his home village.

The Grand Imam of Al-Azhar mourned him. So did the ruler of Dubai, who called him "a maker of a different kind of hope."

He built no fortune. He left something harder to earn.

Would you have said no to the mansion?

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