RIYADH, 24 October 2006 — In theory, medical reports are given by qualified hospital staffers to people for myriad reasons, for presenting to employers for sick leave to getting special treatment at the workplace due to physical disability.
In practice, the medical report is sometimes forged, even for such heady issues as presenting fake evidence in a court of law, according to a report recently in Asharq Al-Awsat, a sister publication of Arab News.
Some public and private health centers have made a business out of selling fake medical reports to people, and in some cases the ease with which fake medical reports can be obtained can help create false impressions in legal disputes.
For example, Dr. Abdul Aziz Al-Saud, a professor of psychology, said his wife obtained a fake medical report in order to bolster her claim of physical abuse against him. He alleges that his expatriate wife used the fake report as grounds for divorce because she no longer wanted to live in Saudi Arabia.
“I met my wife when I was studying abroad,” said the professor. “We got married and returned to the Kingdom. Unfortunately, the lifestyle here did not match the expectations of my wife, so she asked for divorce.”
The professor said his wife managed to get a fake medical report claiming she was admitted to a hospital for bruises due to physical abuse. On the grounds of that allegedly forged document, the case ended up in court and then divorce.
Umm Rehana says her housemaid obtained a faked medical report claiming her sponsor had beaten her. “When I heard that I thought I lost all my chances of traveling abroad because of the charges,” she said. “Thank God, the authorities discovered that the report she handed in was false.”
Non-Saudis are known to use fake medical reports to get permission to bring family members into the Kingdom.
An Asian professional who did not want to be named said he felt like he had no choice but to use a fake medical report saying his pregnant wife needed his mother to help her. In actuality, he was merely trying to facilitate his mother’s Haj visa after she was unable to secure one due to the waiting list in her home country.
Due to the propensity of using fake medical reports to facilitate entry into the Kingdom, the Passport Department has a screening process and vets reports for accuracy.
Dr. Alia Khalil, an associate professor at King Abdul Aziz University, said: “Medical reports have a certain format. Any student in medicine is trained to write these reports in forensic and anatomy courses. Students are trained to know causes of death and getting to recognize injuries, body damage and diseases. Thus, the doctor is qualified to know whether the damage is real or fake.”
Dr. Yasser Al-Ghamdi, head of the health affairs department in Makkah, says that health officials are capable of investigating these kinds of malpractices when reported. “Hospitals can lose their licenses if malpractices in the issuance of medical reports are discovered,” he added.
