Dr. Talal Akram, the acting director of health affairs in Jeddah, has said: “Those who are responsible for this mess will pay for their action.” The mess he is talking about is the appalling treatment of an AIDS patient reported in Arab News, when the New Jeddah Clinic Hospital threw the semi-conscious man out on the street.
Workers at the hospital threw the patient out of the car, which resulted in bruises and skin injures, and he was left there for four hours. The company where the man works had agreed to pay all his medical expenses.
Those who saw the picture of the patient in the newspaper were angry and upset, but the hospital workers apparently completed their mission successfully before fleeing the scene.
The question we have to ask ourselves is, does any hospital have the right to throw a patient out into the street under any pretext?
I doubt if the hospital thought there would be any consequences, and it must have had reason to believe that this sort of behavior would go unpunished. But in order to deter others and make sure such a thing never happens again, the hospital must be punished with the full force of the law by the Ministry of Health.
It must be named and shamed for its flagrant assault on human dignity. What are you waiting for, Dr. Akram? What are you going to do?
Arab News From the Local Press 18 August 2003
