Yemeni’s kidney was not stolen: Health department

JEDDAH: The Jeddah Health Department has denied that security agencies received a complaint from a citizen against a hospital in Jeddah accusing the doctors there of stealing a Yemeni expatriate’s kidney.
Media reports claimed that a hospital in Jeddah had performed surgery on a Yemeni expatriate and removed his kidney to be donated to other people after he was pronounced clinically dead, without notifying his parents.
The citizen, the sponsor of the Yemeni expatriate, found the kidney missing during the washing of Yemeni’s body for funeral prayers, the media report had said.
The acting spokesman of the Jeddah Health Department, Hassan Al-Bahlki, said that the director of King Fahd Hospital in Jeddah, Dr. Abdul Rahman Bakhsh, was questioned by the department over the details of the case. The director confirmed that the Yemeni expatriate was transferred to the hospital by an ambulance after falling from a high building where he was working. He was transferred to the intensive care unit at King Fahd Hospital where he was declared brain dead.
“During his stay in the intensive care unit, the organ donation committee spoke to his family to get their approval to donate his kidney but the family did not give their consent. However, this is their right and it must be respected. The Jeddah Health Department competed all procedures to bury his body in coordination with his brothers and the consulate of his country,” Al-Bahlki added.