MAKKAH: The Department of Health Affairs announced on Sunday that it is investigating a private hospital in the holy city regarding the death of an Egyptian woman who had to have an abortion on Saturday because of life-threatening complications.
The alleged botched procedure then required two more procedures, including a hysterectomy.
The husband has filed a complaint against the hospital, whose name was withheld.
Speaking to Arab News, husband Abdul Aal said his wife was admitted to the hospital on Wednesday night due to irregular vaginal bleeding.
Doctors determined that the fetus, which was 18 weeks into gestation, was attached unnaturally to the woman’s cervix posing immediate risk of death. After the abortion was completed, doctors found they could not stop the bleeding and performed further procedures.
Doctors then assured the husband that they had stopped the bleeding. But when he visited his wife, he says he found her dead in her hospital room. “She was soaked in blood,” he said in tears. “She was very cold. She was lying there dead for a long time and the doctors concealed this from me.”
Earlier in December, the operation department of a private Jeddah hospital was closed after a medical mistake left a patient dead.
The Health Affairs Department in Makkah province ordered the closure following instructions from Minister of Health Dr. Abdullah Al-Rabeeah. The decision was made after a committee investigating the death submitted its report to the minister.