Some months ago, I had a minor procedure performed at a top-notch private Jeddah hospital. The medical part of my experience went without a hitch, but the staff treated me worse than a goat prepared for sacrificial slaughter.
There on the wall of my room was a framed list of patients’ rights. It was all very comforting to know that the hospital took my dignity and my right to be treated better than a goat seriously. Well, on paper anyway, not necessarily in practice. The medical staff was not rude or abusive, simply neglectful. Since there were few patients in the ward I was assigned, I found this inexcusable. To the hospital’s credit, they sent a representative to my room once my complaints reached the administrators’ ears. The representative handed me a complaint form and appeared sincere. But the damage was done and my only desire that day was to get home.
Saudi Arabia is on a hospital-building binge. It’s developing medical centers with state-of-the-art equipment and more and more beds. More and more Saudi men and women are being trained at western medical universities, serving their internships and residencies there, and returning to Saudi Arabia to give us the best care possible. I am also gratified to see more Saudi women entering the nursing profession. I can’t express how much pride I feel when I see young Saudi female nurses bustling about in hospitals doing their jobs in a professional and efficient manner. While this is all fine, it’s not enough. And when we consider the full extent of patient care, Saudi hospitals are sadly lacking in the attention to detail. Visiting a hospital for medical treatment is stressful for any patient. When that patient is a child, the stress among the entire family is ratcheted up manifold. The fact is that the Saudi medical establishment’s concern, empathy and its ability to deal with human nature — I guess, for the lack of a better term, developing a compassionate bedside manner — has not caught up with the technological advancements of medicine and the superior training of our doctors and nurses. Private and government hospitals are coming under intense criticism for repeated instances of turning away accident victims either because of a patient’s inability to pay the bill, lack of insurance, or simply because the patient is an expatriate.
Prince Faisal bin Abdullah, president of the Saudi Red Crescent Authority, recently complained that government and private hospitals are failing in their moral responsibility to admit any patient into their emergency rooms.
The lack of beds is no excuse for turning away a patient. Recently a five-month-old girl with heart problems died in Makkah when she was denied admittance to the ICU due to lack of beds. She remained in the emergency room for 24 hours without receiving proper medical attention. Even when she died her body remained in the ER for many hours because no mortuary employee was available to remove the body. Patients can and should receive the best medical treatment available, even without a bed until they can be transferred to a government hospital or a facility that can handle the case over a period of time. As Prince Faisal put it, “Such behavior goes against the humanitarian principle of the medical profession.”
My hospital experience may be considered just an annoyance in the grand scheme of things, but what is a minor issue to hospital administrators is a frightening experience for most patients who normally have little or no contact with the medical profession. The fateful incident involving the infant in Makkah is an all too common experience. Harsh and arbitrary rules governing the admittance of a patient conflict with the humanitarian aspect of medical profession and the function of hospitals.
I hope that day never comes that I am faced with a serious medical issue and must place my life in the hands of a hospital staff that is not 100 percent committed to my care.
Email: [email protected]
