ABHA: A relative of an accident victim in Al-Khafji has blamed officials at the Ministry of Health and the Saudi Embassy in China for not coming forward with financial assistance for his treatment despite government instructions.
“Although there were instructions to the concerned departments to meet all the expenses for the treatment of my brother, they did nothing,” Nassir Al-Sabaie, brother of Muhammad Al-Sabaie, who required brain surgery after having been critically injured in a traffic accident in Al-Khafji, close to Kuwait borders, months ago.
Al-Sabaie said that as the ministry had failed to help his brother seek expert treatment in Beijing, his relatives had, with great difficulty, to raise the money from other sources.
As the cost of the three-month treatment was beyond their means, the Al-Sabaie family again requested government help through the Saudi Embassy in Beijing, the brother said.
Still the embassy did not offer any assistance except to arrange his medical evacuation back home.
Al-Sabaie said he had sought the help of a nongovernmental agency to take his brother to a Chinese hospital after the ministry did not offer help. He accused the ministry, which he believed was aware of the patient’s need for prolonged convalescing after surgery, of taking no action in response to another government directive to send him to the United States.
Al-Sabaie said he learned from a ministry official that the two government orders to provide assistance to his brother were simply unheeded.
He also complained about the lack of specialist doctors and an insufficient number of beds in hospitals run by the ministry. He said he had to take his brother, who was in a coma, to five hospitals after the accident.
The Khafji General Hospital refused to treat him, saying that it lacked the specialist neurosurgeons to handle his case. After having been rejected by three more ministry hospitals because of no specialist or bed, the man was admitted to the Military Hospital in Dhahran. He was taken to Beijing after the hospital asked the family to transfer the patient to elsewhere because he required protracted treatment.
Currently Muhammad is recuperating at the Saudi German Hospital after Crown Prince Sultan intervened and offered to pay all expenses.
