JEDDAH, 10 November 2007 — The son of a 76-year-old diabetic woman, who died at a hospital in Jeddah recently, intends to file a lawsuit against the hospital saying medical workers there did not do enough to save her life after she was brought to the hospital’s emergency unit.
Nizar Binjabi’s mother was brought to the unnamed private hospital suffering from high blood sugar on Oct. 31.
Binjabi told Arab News how, before calling an ambulance, he wanted to move his mother from her wheelchair to a bed and found her body cold. Fearing for her health, Binjabi called a Saudi Red Crescent ambulance to take his mother to the nearest hospital.
In the ER, Binjabi’s mother was diagnosed with a high blood sugar level that had reached 500. “The doctor asked the nurse to connect a urinary catheter. As she was connecting the device, my mother started to scream in pain. I spoke to the doctor asking him to check on her and to see why is she in pain. I asked for the ICU doctor and requested permission to move her to another hospital,” Binjabi said.
After around one hour, the ICU doctor came and told Binjabi that his mother was healthy and that there was nothing wrong with her. However, sometime later the woman went into a coma during which her pulse went low and doctors gave her an injection.
After a while Binjabi’s mother opened her eyes briefly and made the testament of faith said by Muslims at the time of death.
“We saw her dying in front of our eyes and no one did anything to stop it. After that they put an oxygen mask pretending that she was still alive and took her to the ICU. As they arrived there, the doctor said she had died,” he said.
“She died just like that and the doctors didn’t give her insulin. On the same night just before we came to the hospital she was laughing with us and wasn’t complaining of any problems,” he said.
An emergency room doctor, who was on call and present on the night of the death, told Binjabi that he witnessed what had happened and would testify about the error. When Arab News called that doctor, he said he did not know anything and denied knowing Nizar Binjabi.
Binjabi commented that the doctor might have been afraid of losing his job.
Binjabi filed a complaint on the first working day after the incident at the Health Minister’s office and included all the details of his mother’s case.
“The ministry promised us that they would investigate the matter,” said Binjabi, adding that no response has been received yet.
