This is the story: A poor Saudi couple could not find an incubator for their newborn in a government hospital. The child weighed only 600 grams and its parents had no choice but to put the child in a private hospital even though they knew they could never pay the bill. The bill in fact reached SR307,000. The responsibility for payment surely lies with the Ministry of Health. Not many people could afford to pay such a bill.
The private hospital filed a suit against the father demanding that he pay the bill and take his child home. I think the hospital should have sued the Ministry of Health instead of the child’s father.
The ministry’s public hospitals in a large city such as Jeddah couldn’t provide an incubator for an infant in need. In order to save their child, the parents were forced to abandon him for a while in the private hospital and desperately seek help.
The truth is public hospitals need to be investigated and their procedures looked into. Citizens are experiencing real crises with these hospitals, which are constantly delaying appointments, always short of equipment and medication and claim to be unable to admit patients who are critically ill. What I can’t understand is that some of these public hospitals have shifts and sections where patients are asked to pay for extra services.
Increasing these services is making things worse and more complicated. And if these hospitals have the time, effort and space to offer more patients more medical services for money, then the Ministry of Health needs to review things regarding this in light of the charges and the ability of public hospitals to spare the hassle of lawsuits for citizens who can’t afford to pay exorbitant private hospital bills.
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A 16-year-old girl has attempted to commit suicide for the second time in the Jeddah Women’s Shelter. A committee has been established to investigate the incident. According to a local newspaper, the girl was put in the shelter after her father abused her. The doctor who diagnosed and treated her described her thus: “Psychosis: a severe mental disorder in which thought and emotions are so impaired that contact is lost with external reality; condition also accompanied by visual and auditory hallucinations.”
Anyone with any knowledge of psychiatry would realize instantly that this young woman doesn’t belong in a shelter. Her place is in a psychiatric hospital. Living among a group of 60 other girls inside the shelter is dangerous for her and for the others. Her condition will likely worsen due to the absence of psychological therapy, supervision and follow-ups.
Patients who suffer from visual and auditory hallucinations might harm others without being aware of the consequences of their actions.
It is very strange that a place that is supposed to provide protection for its residents fails to provide the simplest protection for them by allowing them to live with a psychiatric patient who is critically ill.
This is not the first time this girl has tried to kill herself. No one can predict what might happen next. She is a threat to others as well. Psychiatric patients, without understanding what they are doing, have often committed crimes and inflicted serious harm upon their families and societies. It is the duty of the shelter to ensure the safety and comfort of its residents. Otherwise it will become a place that threatens their lives instead.
