Medical commission needs independence
My mother passed away almost two years ago. She was a renal patient for five years and during her illness my family and I have come to a close contact with the Saudi health public and private sectors.
We have learned that if you want peace of mind entrust your beloved ones to the private sector.
Yet by going to the private sector one must have an excellent credit history and that the same credit is maintained following the treatment. I doubt, though, that many families can keep up with the costs of a private hospital because receiving treatment in the private sector in Saudi Arabia has become increasingly unbearable for the middle class.
Recently, the media greet us every morning with a shocking story of malpractice and medical mistakes in which children and adults are victimized by alleged negligence.
This is not to say that medical errors do not happen elsewhere. They occur even in the most advanced countries. Medical mistakes are considered the third leading cause of death in the world. Last year, 250,000 people died in the United States because of medical errors.
Millions were also injured. However, what makes United States and other developed countries different from us is the accountability system. A health care provider in the US might lose his license if the mistake was found to be a result of a malpractice. This is not the practice in Saudi Arabia. I have never read about a doctor or a nurse who lost his license for a proven case of medical malpractice.
In 2011, Liam Donaldson, the WHO envoy for patient safety said, “If you were admitted to a hospital tomorrow in any country ... your chances of being subjected to an error in your care would be something like 1 to 10.
Your chances of dying due to an error in health care would be 1 in 300.”
He compared the risk of dying from a medical error to the risk of dying in an airplane crash, which stands at 1 in 10 million.
I wonder whether Mr. Donaldson consulted his record about medical errors in Saudi Arabia before citing that number.
I am sure that he did not because if he did he would have said, “Going to a hospital in Saudi Arabia is more dangerous than driving in its own streets. In Saudi Arabia, 73 percent of the registered deaths of people under the age of 40 is due to road accidents. Twenty people die every day.”
According to a report by the Saudi Ministry of Health, the number of medical errors under investigation by the Saudi Shariah Medical Commission, the agency responsible for investigating the reported cases of medical errors, is 1,165.
The number is alarming, though we all know that there are probably an equal number cases that go unreported by the families due to the religious nature of the Saudi society that strongly believes that death is fate and no one can change it.
Many Saudis believe that dying in a hospital at a very young age is no different form dying at bed in your 90s. I am not claiming otherwise, however, malpractice should not go unpunished.
We should introduce malpractice liability and financial penalties for poor performance. We need a consumer reporting system for patient safety that is similar to the US.
That does not mean holding doctors and nurses accountable for each self-reported case. We know that families might not have enough medical background to judge the medical procedure. Yet their reports should be used as a tip for a further professional investigation.
The medical investigative body should be independent, but currently most members of the Saudi Shariah Medical Commission are practicing doctors at other government hospitals. It’s difficult to investigate and charge your colleague or close friend, and then work or go for shisha at the beach with him the next day. What kind of justice is this going to produce?
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