RIYADH: The Saudi health attaché for the United States and Canada has refuted claims that a Saudi family in the US has been forced to seek aid from a church to finance medical treatment.
Columnist Najeeb Abdul Rahman Al-Zamil wrote on Aug. 15 in Al-Eqtisadiah newspaper that a Saudi man, called Abdul Aziz, had been forced to avail of the services of a US church to continue medical treatment for his wife and daughter.
However, Sulaiman ibn Mansour Al-Shuaibi, Saudi health attaché for the US and Canada, said the Saudi government had over eight years spent more than SR6.1 million in treating the family in the US and that — having undergone necessary treatment — the family has been reluctant to return to the Kingdom for follow-up treatment.
He said the family has opted to remain in the US in spite of the government spending millions of riyals in treating them. He added that the claim the family was seeking aid from a church was a ploy to force the Health Office at the Saudi Embassy in the US to pay for the family’s stay there.
Al-Shuaibi said the man’s wife went to the US in 2000 at the Saudi government’s expense for treatment for lymphoma. The woman was immediately admitted into a specialized center in Houston. After three years, on Dec. 31, 2003, the center announced that the woman had completed her medication, and so her file was closed.
Al-Suhaibi said the woman’s file was once again opened on March 6, 2005, on the instructions of Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah. The woman continued to be treated and she responded positively to chemotherapy.
Two years later, on Feb. 28, 2007, authorities decided to close her file again and asked her to return to the Kingdom. But on April 1, 2007, on instructions from the minister of health, her file was reopened for a third time for another three months.
The woman then continued treatment for seven months before her file was closed for the last time on Oct. 31, 2007, and she was asked to return to the Kingdom for routine follow-ups, which are available in the country. The family, however, preferred to stay in the US at their own expense.
Al-Suhaibi said the man’s 11-year-old daughter, who is epileptic, was treated in the US at the expense of the government. On March 31, 2008, her file was also closed and she was asked to continue treatment in the Kingdom.
