JEDDAH, 10 January — A hospital in the Rawabi district of Jeddah threw out on the street all its old files containing the personal details of thousands of patients.
The files and other documents, which also carried the names of Allah and the Holy Prophet (peace be upon him), were seen scattered in the street, Okaz newspaper reported yesterday.
Hospital Director Muhammad Al-Rifaei, who admitted the periodic disposal of old files, said action will be taken against the hospital officials who were responsible for the gross negligence in handling the files.
A number of cleaners working at the hospital were sent to dispose of the old files and other documents, which were kept on the roof of the hospital building. When they started to throw the papers into large containers on the ground, strong winds caught and scattered them, a hospital official explained.
Isamael Al-Sayyed, a grocer in the neighborhood, said: "I saw the cleaners throwing the papers from the top of the building to a garbage truck. I was shocked to find the municipal laborers putting the files and other papers in to the truck with other garbage."
He added that some children began to play with the files, others took some back to their homes. He feared that some boys might have started a fire, meaning the old dry papers would have endangered the whole neighborhood.
Ahmad Al-Amri, a resident of the neighborhood, said: "I found my son carrying a number of old files with the names of women and the details of their diseases. I tore them up and threw away. When I went out to the street I saw the whole area littered with more files and case sheets."
Muhammad Al-Olyani, another local resident, said he and others strongly objected to the throwing out of documents so carelessly as some of them contained the names of Allah and the Prophet (pbuh).
