Here is a recently published news article from one of our Saudi papers: “A six-year-old child died last Wednesday in Riyadh after falling into an open sewer outside Khashm Al-Ain Clinic. The clinic is part of the King Abdul Aziz Medical City which belongs to the National Guard.”
Yes, that news was published in an off-hand manner as if it were completely routine. No consideration was given to the anguish and sorrow of the child’s parents. As far as the news item was concerned, it could as well have been a bag that fell into the open sewer.
There were some additional details which described the accident in an inhumane and callous fashion. As if what the news published described a bag that had fallen into the open sewer!
There were also some stupid details that described the accident, with no feelings or emotions.
The child’s father had brought his sick daughter to the clinic, accompanied by his two sons. Not wanting to sit in the patient’s waiting room, the two boys went outside to play in the garden; the father was able to watch them from a distance. After a time, he noticed that one of the boys was missing and so he began to search for him, both inside and outside the clinic.
During his search, he found an open sewer full of sewage and fearing that his son might have fallen into the open hole, he called the fire department. They took a long time to answer the emergency call and when they did, they found the child dead at the bottom of the open sewer.
As is always done in such situations, the fire department wrote a report which the father has a right to take a copy of.
The problem is that the authorities, such as the general manager of health affairs and the executive director of medical services, started an investigation into the accident as if such accidents were unknown or strange to them and as if the hospital’s emergency department had not notified the officials of the danger of an open sewer a year ago! I shall make no further comment on this tragedy except to say that it was merely routine and so not to be worried about.
Every week, we read of some example of a lack of responsibility which costs someone’s life and, in the way which has become routine to us, we do nothing about it.
