Her name is Mariam Abdullah Osman Shafi, but she is also known as 10004602, her medical file number from her current address: The Intensive Care Unit in Sebya hospital.
Maryam was admitted to the hospital’s emergency ward at 9:05 p.m. on Thursday, July 20 with a pain in her lungs. She was diagnosed with dyspnea, a shortness of breath associated with numerous medical disorders, and reported to have a history of arterial problems. The doctors performed cardiovascular examinations, blood tests, and they injected her with a medication meant to stabilize her condition. The drug was reported by the media to be Zantac, with the active ingredient ranitidine hydrochloride, which is used to block acid secretions in the stomach. The drug is reported to have adverse side effects in patients with cardiac rhythm disturbances.
Shafi was then admitted to the hospital’s intensive care unit. After the doctor finished all the procedures, he asked Shafi’s son about any recent medications his mother was using. Unable to recall, the young man went home to retrieve the content of his mother’s medicine stash.
When he got home, he received a phone call from the hospital: His mother was in a critical condition. After three intense hours, the son was told she had a heart attack because of the injection.
A week passed. The doctors initially thought the woman had a stroke, but ruled that out after further examination. Meanwhile, the son learned that his mother wasn’t the first to suffer adverse effects from the medication.
“I was really surprised to know about two other cases similar to my mother’s,” he said. “I felt something was wrong because both patients were injected with Zantac. One of them died and the other, who is 17 years old, was rescued. My mother is 48 years old and until now we don’t have a clear medical explanation as to why she is still in a coma.”
Shafi’s son is hoping for generous people to help him transfer his mother to a more specialized hospital because of her condition.
The fact of the matter is this: Doctors and nurses have got to take more responsibility of the sensitive job they are doing. Their mistakes are fatal. When a patient visits the hospital suffering from pain in her lungs and then she’s given the wrong shot and she ends up in a coma and all her tests and X-rays say she is not suffering from any disease then there is something seriously wrong.
When patients are administered medication that violates the Hippocratic oath, it raises questions: Were these patients the lab rats for new medicine? Will there be a real investigation into the matter? How many mistakes like these occur in Saudi Arabia anyway? Isn’t it about time to do something that actually solves this problem?
