Cairo
An outbreak of the new coronavirus and related measures have prompted many young Egyptians to postpone their weddings. Medics Aya Mesbah and Mohammed Fahmi were among them. They had to put off their wedding party that was originally scheduled for March. However, the couple have proven that love cannot be conquered — even by the coronavirus. Aya, a nurse, and Mohammed, a medical administrator, at a state-run hospital in the Nile Delta province of Mansura, have recently caused sensation on social media after they appeared together in photos inside an ICU.
In the photos, Aya, clad in a medical uniform, is seen checking Mohammed’s temperature and blood pressure, giving the impression they are up to their ears in a nurse-patient love story. One photo shows Mohammed presents an engagement ring to Aya.
The pre-wedding photo session was the brainchild of a professional photographer. “My idea was that the groom plays the patient and the bride plays the doctor with both exchanging looks of admiration before they fall in love of each other,” the photographer Mohammed Selim, said.
“The idea came to me because both are working in the medical field. Their marriage was delayed due to the closure of wedding halls as a precaution against the spread of the coronavirus and also due to the death of the bride’s father,” Selim told Egyptian online newspaper Bawaba News.
The photographer said they had rented an ICU at a private hospital for the session that took one hour. The photo session took place more than a month ago at a private hospital in Mansoura, according to the photographer.
“I wanted to do something different and romantic. So, I got the idea of holding the session inside a hospital to make it related to their work.”
Aya and Mohammed liked the idea. “The idea revived my first meeting with Aya as I came to know her more than a year ago during work at one hospital. I admired her and proposed to her,” Mohammed, the groom, said, who did not give a new date for their wedding.
The photographer said they had rented an ICU at a private hospital for the session that took one hour. Some critics, however, accused Selim and the couple of wasting resources of a hospital at a time when the country is battling to contain the virus, a charge that the photographer has denied.
“The hospital where the photo session was held is private and not governmental. It doesn’t take in corona patients,” Selim told Egyptian newspaper Al Mesri Al Youm.
“Besides the equipment that appeared in the photos was not operated. The whole situation was a sort of acting. The groom is not a patient. He is in fine health.”
The Egyptian government has recently unveiled a plan for gradual return to normal life starting mid-June, making the wearing of a protective face mask mandatory in public places and on transport means.—AP
