Public hospitals in Egypt are not always the cleanest or healthiest options. They are overcrowded and understaffed – often with inexperienced staff. Egypt has the highest prevalence of Hepatitis C and most experts say this is a result of neglect in the healthcare sector.

But yesterday, pictures taken from one of the teaching hospitals in Egypt started to surface on social networks and shocked viewers at the level of neglect. The pictures come from the neonatal unit in the El-Shatby Hospital in Alexandria, Egypt.

Here are the images posted online:

The images were taken by Dr. Magdy Badr El-Deen, a pediatrician at the hospital, to draw attention to the disastrous conditions the babies are put in within the neonatal unit. They are packed together in a small little bed at a stage when their immune systems are not yet fully functional.

According to Hossam Hassan, a medical student at the same hospital and the one who spread the pictures online, the neonatal unit in the hospital is caring for over 70 newborns, but there are only seven nurses in the whole unit. So that is one nurse for every 10 newborn babies, a far cry from the accepted standard of one nurse per baby (or one nurse per two babies at most). Many of the babies in the image are premature born, meaning they need extra care to make it through the first few critical days.

El-Shatby Hospital neonatal unit is no stranger to controversy. In 2006, a fire erupted in the unit due to negligence which led to the death of 12 newborn babies. The investigations later revealed that there was major neglect in the wiring and heating of the unit which was blamed for the fire.