JEDDAH, 12 October 2006 — A car here put an end to a Nigerian woman’s lucky streak of Ramadan-season beggary recently. The woman, who will be passed on to authorities for deportation, was admitted to the emergency room at King Abdul Aziz University Hospital and is recuperating from her injuries.
When doctors were preparing the woman for emergency surgery, they found SR15,000 ($4,000) in her possession, presumably her take from begging.
A car crashed into her early Sunday morning causing a third degree open fracture in her left leg and pelvis.
Dr. Khalid Al-Sahhar, orthopedic specialist at the hospital, who performed the operation with Dr. Shareef Qashlan, head of the Orthopedics Department, said the fracture had been set successfully.
Al-Sahhar had told the nurse to remove the patient’s clothing prior to the operation and that was when the hospital staff discovered the money.
“In this case we keep the money in the hospital’s deposit box until the patient is discharged from the hospital,” said Dr. Sami Ba-Dawood, the hospital’s general director.
The woman is residing illegally in the Kingdom and will be given to the authorities after she completely recovers.
Ramadan is a lucrative time of year for beggars and the homeless, as many Muslims consider the holy month — where people are supposed to reflect on the suffering, hungry and downtrodden with the help of daytime fasting — a good time to earn baraka (blessings) from God through charitable acts.
This case of a beggar getting her healthy “Ramadan bonus” is not isolated: The Red Crescent recently transferred an African woman who was collecting aluminum cans to the emergency room of King Fahd General Hospital. She was badly injured from an undisclosed accident and died on the operating table. Inside the woman’s bag of cans was SR27,000 ($7,200).
“The bag and the money will be kept at the hospital until a relative of hers comes to get them,” said Dr. Mohammad Bakhsh, head of the ER department at the hospital. “If she has no relatives, the social services department will handle the procedures involved,” he added without elaborating.
