JEDDAH, 21 October 2005 — The Ministry of Health has clamped down on the refusal by some doctors in the Kingdom to treat or operate on AIDS patients. It has emphasized the importance of helping these patients and reminded medical staff that it is their job to treat them.
The warning is the result of refusal by many surgeons, anesthetists, laboratories, specialists, dentists, speculum specialists, obstetricians and gynecologists to supervise or conduct surgical procedures on HIV patients.
The medical staff who refused to treat patients took the stance that they refused to treat infected patients in order to prevent themselves from getting infected.
Dr. Mustafa Linjawi, vice dean at the Applied Medical Sciences Department at King Abdul Aziz University (KAAU) and coordinator at the clinical immunology pharmacy told Arab News that these kinds of viruses transmit from one person to another in a limited number of ways. The only ways are by sexual contact, by saliva or by blood transfusion.
“The chances for a doctor or a specialist to be infected are one in a million,” he said. “Though I’ve never heard of such a case, dentists could become infected if they get hurt while using sharp tools or needles on HIV/AIDS patients, but they are usually well aware of that risk.”
Medical employees need to take all the standard precautions when dealing with HIV/AIDS patients just as they do with any other case. There is wide scientific support to show that standard precautions against infections will stop the transmission of HIV/AIDS from patients to physicians as in the case of other infectious diseases.
Dr. Linjawi contended that any doctor when dealing with these patients would, as a matter of course, take all precautions needed when handling patients who carry deadly viruses. In some cases during long surgical procedures, he said, the gloves the medical staff wear might become damaged and may cause infection.
If the surgeon had a cut in his hand and he did not make sure it was cleaned and properly covered, then infection is possible. He also said that specialists who work in laboratory however could never be infected due to the label each test tube carries on it as a warning sign.
Dr. Ahmad Abdulminem, an orthodontist explained that the tools the dentists use if not disposable are always cleaned in highly efficient disinfection machines. “Even if the patient did not mention that he has HIV/AIDS,” Dr. Abdulminem said, “our tools are always disinfected. As a doctor it is our job to help and treat any patient without any discrimination.”
However sources at the Ministry of Health confirmed to Al-Watan newspaper that according to the agreement Saudi Arabia signed with the United States, physicians are obliged to offer all the help possible to HIV/AIDS patients. Medical staff is obliged to help these patients without differentiating between them and other patients who carry deadly viruses.
Establishment of medical centers such as King Saud Hospital for AIDS in Jeddah and others in the Eastern Province have showed that these patients will receive the appropriate medication needed. “If any infection happens it would probably occur due to the doctor’s or the specialist’s carelessness,” Dr. Linjawi concluded.
