Several days ago I wrote advising the Ministry of Health to issue a statement explaining to the public the reasons and justifications that prompted the minister to shun local hospitals and seek medical treatment abroad. I still don’t know if the ministry would ever heed my advice but I see it in their interest to issue such a statement because I am confident there must have been a logical explanation for such an action. It would at least help restore public confidence in local health institutions.
It is not possible at all that a minister, anywhere, would travel abroad to seek medical treatment unless under compelling circumstances. Since I made the request, conditions have changed slightly in regard to the services offered by public health institutions. Passing by Al-Shumaisi Hospital in Riyadh which serves as a medical center for the city’s poor, my mind went back a quarter of a century.
I recalled then how my father died of a heart attack in that same hospital which, at the time, lacked any catheterization device. Had that device been available, my father’s life could have been saved. Now it is found in almost every large hospital having become an indispensable tool of modern medicine.
This hospital is the oldest and largest in the Kingdom. It houses the largest emergency center in the city and is the only resort for the poor from the city and surrounding areas. They can neither afford to go to private hospitals nor secure an approval to be transferred to prestigious public hospitals.
Despite all this, the hospital lacks the equipment that provides the poor with the basic requirement of advanced medicine. Had my late father entered the hospital today he would have received the same treatment he got 25 years ago and might have remained in bed until the crisis was over or he passed away. I find it difficult to believe that such a famous hospital lacks a catheter.
<31 July 2002>
