“The hospital has only a limited number of beds that are too inadequate to accommodate all the inpatients. The mentally sick people also receive poor health care at the hospital,” they said.
Speaking to Al-Madinah daily, the relatives urged the health authorities to have an urgent intervention to improve the poor condition of the hospital as well as to upgrade its facilities. They noted that people from Jeddah as well as from the neighboring regions up to Rabigh in the north and Qunfuda in the south are relying on this lone hospital for the treatment of the mentally sick people.
Saleh Saeed, brother of one patient, recounted the bitter experience: “We are not in a position to protect the rights of our mentally sick relatives when they are denied proper health care. This was obvious for me when the Saudi Red Crescent volunteers refused to take my brother to the mental health hospital.
“Their condition to take him to the hospital was that a policeman should accompany the mentally deranged man. Accordingly, I sought the help of the patrol police. But it was shocking to see the way my brother had been taken to the hospital in their ambulance. They had chained his legs and hands as if he was a dreaded criminal. I spent nearly three hours at the hospital waiting for him to be admitted. But unfortunately I was informed that there was no vacant bed and therefore I had to take my brother home and come back for follow-up consultation after two days.
“When I insisted the hospital staff to admit him in view of his tendency for violence, they suggested that my brother occupy the bed of another patient, who had been sent home temporarily for three days on an experimental basis. This is a dismal situation.”
Yusuf Ibrahim, another Saudi man, told the newspaper that the intervention of middlemen is required to get a bed at the hospital.
“When I took my brother to the hospital, I was asked to bring him next week because there were no vacant beds,” he said while urging authorities to either make available more beds or build another hospital urgently.
Meanwhile, a source at the hospital, requesting anonymity, said there have been no serious efforts to fulfill the promise made by the health authorities since 1423H to build a 500-bed mental hospital.
“Nearly 10 years ago, it was announced that a new hospital project would be completed within three years. The municipality had also considered many sites for implementing the project, but nothing happened because of technical problems. At last, the municipality awarded a site along the Makkah Expressway to one of the contractors. But it was revealed later that the site included some encroached plots which further delayed the project,” he said.
