The Health Directorate in the Eastern Province has ordered a private doctor in Dammam not to travel outside the Kingdom until the completion of an investigation into the death of a woman who was under his treatment. It also ordered confiscation of the doctor’s passport.

The investigation into the cause of the woman’s death, which will also ascertain the extent of the doctor's responsibility for her death, is expected to be completed in two weeks, Khaled Al-Osaimi, a spokesman at the directorate, said in a statement.

Forty-five-year-old Haya Al-Shamri died four months after she was operated on for an abdominal defect at a private hospital, a local daily reported on Tuesday.

The directorate set up a commission of inquiry when the Al-Shamri’s relatives demanded an enquiry into the fatal mistake they believed the doctor committed while operating.

“The surgeon said the operation on her navel was simple, had a 100-percent success rate and that there was nothing to worry about. Yet she slipped into a state of coma because the surgeon, as we learned later, made a fatal mistake while sewing up her surgical wound. She remained in a coma for over a month without any improvement in her condition,” the father of the victim said.

She was later moved to the Dammam Central Hospital, where she underwent another surgery. When her condition did not improve, she was admitted to the ICU at King Fahd Specialist Hospital in Dammam.

“All the doctors who examined her told me that a mistake was committed by the first surgeon who operated on her, which seriously damaged the functioning of her stomach and vitiated blood circulation,” the father added.

She underwent three surgeries at the specialist hospital, followed by four more two weeks later.

He said he received two medical reports from experts at the two hospitals where she was taken to reverse the mistakes committed at the private hospital, which certify that the cause of his daughter’s complications was human error.




“We used to hear and read about medical errors in other cities, but I never thought that my mother would fall victim to it,” Fahd Al-Shamri said, adding that it was gross negligence that led to his mother’s death.