A four-year-old girl in Najran nearly lost her sight due to medical negligence following an erroneous operation, local media said.

Speaking to an Arabic daily, the child’s father said that his daughter, Miyar, was suffering from a squint in her right eye which was also affecting the left one. Initially, the doctor at King Khalid Hospital in Najran under whose treatment the child was ruled out surgery, but then decided to carry out the operation.

Miyar was discharged the same day but in the evening the parents were surprised to see blood was seeping from the cotton bandage on her eyes. They brought the child back to the hospital on the following day but the doctor told them not to worry.

Unsatisfied with his reply, the father went to the head of eye clinic, Dr. Abdullah Abu Bakr who informed him that Miyar would need urgent surgical intervention to remove the glut from her eyelid.

However, following the second operation, they were shocked to find that their daughter had lost her sight in the operated eye. Meanwhile, the medical staff at the hospital insisted that she be referred to the King Khalid Eye Specialist Hospital (KKESH) in Riyadh immediately.

After a battery of intensive tests and treatment over a period of seven days at KKESH, the child began gradually to regain her sight but with abnormalities in both eyes, the father said.

He has called for an investigation into the case and sought compensation for the psychological trauma he and his wife have had to endure over the last couple of weeks.

The incident follows in the wake of another case in King Khalid Hospital in Najran where a child died after an operation to remove a ring she had swallowed. Last week, the Ministry of Health announced the formation of a medical team to investigate the death of the little girl.