JEDDAH, 1 October 2005 — The government is investigating allegations that hundreds of mental patients at a Taif hospital were stripped naked and herded into a shower of high-pressure stream from the hose of a tanker truck.
A high-level panel, chaired by Muhammad Abdullah Al-Nafie, chairman of the Control and Investigation Commission, has launched a probe into alleged inhuman treatment of patients at Shihar Hospital in Taif.
The panel, ordered by higher authorities, already has questioned a number of officials to find out whether the allegations of cruelty to inmates of the mental hospital are true and will present a report of its findings.
According to a report carried by Al-Watan Arabic daily last week, hospital staff used hoses attached to water tankers to wash groups of naked mental patients without any respect for their privacy or dignity.
The panel, which included Health Minister Dr. Hamad Al-Manie and Taif Governor Fahd Muammar, has collected information about all departments of the hospital, Al-Riyadh Arabic daily said. The panel will present a detailed report to higher authorities, it added.
A low-level committee, chaired Dr. Khaled Al-Aiban, deputy health minister for planning and development, earlier questioned a number of hospital officials and employees following press reports with pictures of the incident.
The National Society for Human Rights (NSHR) said it would investigate the wrongdoing. Muflih Al-Qahtani, a senior NSHR official, said staff involved in such inhumane acts should be taken to court and punished if found guilty.
“We will request the Ministry of Health to provide the mentally disabled patients with more care and protection so that such a thing doesn’t happen again,” Al-Qahtani said.
Al-Watan had published pictures of groups of naked men in showers being washed with a big hose. In the accompanying report, the daily said the hospital’s groundskeepers were given responsibility for washing the patients.
Some 600 patients were herded to the showers and the groundskeepers then turn the hoses on them. Helpless, the victims cover their eyes with their hands in order to lessen the pressure of the water on them. “Sometimes polluted water is used, and many patients have become infected with diseases,” Al-Watan reported.
Dr. Mohammed Al-Hamed, head of the psychiatric department at Bakhsh Hospital in Jeddah, told Arab News that many inhumane things could happen in a mental hospital because of a lack of proper training.
Al-Hamed blamed the ministry for not giving mental patients and mental wards proper attention. “The ministry cares about other hospitals and completely ignores the mental departments.”
The Taif hospital is the largest mental hospital in the Kingdom with 690 beds and 1,300 employees, including doctors, technicians and groundskeepers. It offers treatment to mental patients through work and recreation. Some patients earn a monthly salary for their work.
