YANBU, 15 February 2007 — A father has lodged a complaint against a private hospital for the death of his daughter, the daily Al-Watan reported yesterday. The name of the hospital was not mentioned in the report.
Abdul Khalik Al-Zahrani claims that his daughter, Bayan, contracted an infection in her lungs due to the sanitary conditions of the hospital. The father reportedly provided photographic evidence to support his claims of negligence on the part of the doctors as well as the conditions in the hospital rooms.
Bayan was suffering from a heart condition, which, along with the lung infection, was cited as the cause of death in the report.
Al-Zahrani wants his other daughter, Sultana, who is also suffering from the same condition and currently admitted to the hospital, moved to a better health care facility.
In his complaint, Al-Zahrani describes conditions at the hospital that he considers signs of negligence. For example, the father describes a room with five beds in which an eight-year-old patient rests next to a 40-year-old man with a contagious disease.
He claims that hospital staffers enter the intensive care ward in their street clothes and do not adhere to sanitary regimes, such as regular hand washing. A photo was published next to the report of what Al-Zahrani claims is the head of the hospital’s intensive care unit sleeping on the job.
The father also claims that the hospital terminated the pregnancy of his wife with an abortion-inducing drug on an earlier occasion after misdiagnosing a life-threatening pregnancy complication.
Abortion is legal in Saudi Arabia only when carrying the pregnancy to term would endanger the life of the expecting mother.
