RIYADH, 26 December 2006 — A three-week-old baby died here yesterday after reportedly acquiring an infection while being treated at the state-run Shomaisi Hospital in Riyadh.
The parents of the child were in the process of coming up with the funds for a surgical procedure the child needed. The parents claim the child was placed with another child in an incubator that was designed to accommodate one.
Shamsher Ali Khan, the Indian father of the child that had been birthed prematurely by Caesarian section, said he wasn’t sure if an autopsy had been done to confirm the cause of death.
Arab News tried to contact a representative of Shomaisi hospital to confirm if an autopsy had been performed, but officials there refused to speak about the case.
The medical papers provided to Arab News by the parents showed that the newborn was suffering from a heart murmur that required surgery, low birth weight, respiratory distress and mild asphyxia.
“But, it’s tragic that an infection has played a part in the death of the baby before she was taken to the operation theater,” said Ali Khan.
This is not the first case of a child death caused by hospital infection in the country. A seven-year-old girl died in one of the local hospitals because of an intestinal infection recently. Cases of death caused by medical negligence often make headlines in Saudi newspapers.
