JEDDAH: The Eastern Province Health Department has said that the death of six-year-old Sakina Al-Muhannah

was not the result of a medical error, but it was due to bacterial infection.

“The child suffered a severe bacterial infection, which caused a sharp drop in her blood pressure, leading to her unfortunate death,” an official of the department was quoted by a local daily on Monday.

The legal health commission will issue its decision on the case soon, it said.

Asaad Saud, a spokesman for the health department in the EP, has extended the department’s condolences to the parents of the girl, saying: “The health department always seeks to provide the best treatment in accordance with the most advanced criteria in the medical sector, and will not tolerate any neglect or lagging from any health practitioner who might endanger the lives of patients.”

As for the amputation of the girl’s hand, he said: “The girl suffered a blood clot in her left hand, which entailed surgery for its amputation.”

The parents of Sakina had earlier filed a complaint accusing Qatif Central Hospital’s staff of committing a medical error which resulted in the amputation of the child’s hand.

Immediately, orders were issued to the treatment service department to conduct the necessary investigations on the complaint and to take the regulatory procedures.

The complaint and all the documents on the case were referred to a consultative medical committee in accordance with the system and the scientific procedures in such cases.

The spokesman said: “Six days before the death of the child, she suffered a severe seizure with breathing difficulty and a lung infection. She was given the necessary treatment and medicines. During that time, her amputated hand’s condition was stable and she had no traces of other infections in the hand. Rather, she only suffered from the severe lung infection, and her health condition was not stable in general.”

“The girl was subsequently moved to the intensive care unit in the children’s ward at the same hospital where she later suffered from a sharp drop in her blood pressure,” the spokesman added.

In another development, the Ministry of Health said that the Ehalati program has helped in saving the lives of 84 patients from the 17 to 23 of this month of Shawal, and involved the transfer operations of approximately 4,490 patients.

Suleiman Al-Sharie, the supervisor of the Ehalati program said in a statement to local media that the program witnessed 2,835 cases in need to be transferred to specialized hospitals. He said that 63.1 percent of the referred cases were accepted and admitted to the concerned specialized hospitals.

He said the number of emergency cases handled by the program amounted to 1,061, accounting for 23.63 percent of the total, while the number of hospitalized cases stood at 1,129 cases, accounting for 25.15 percent.

The number of cases referred to outside clinics totaled 2,216, accounting for 49.35 percent of the total of cases referred by the automated system.