Blocking patients’ release shockingIT is mind-boggling to learn of an incident in Madina in which an emergency room doctor at a private hospital allegedly refused to release victims of a car crash because they were not able to pay the SR1,000 admission fee that the hospital required.
Concerned citizens who had transported the victims offered to transport the injured to a government hospital, but the doctor in charge refused to allow that unless the fee was paid. One victim of the car crash, a small child, died en route to the private hospital, having received no treatment whatsoever.
If the family’s charges are verified, the emergency room doctor deserves to feel the full force of the law, not to mention a revocation of his right to practice medicine in the Kingdom. If he is a foreign national, he should serve whatever sentence is determined just in the Kingdom and then immediately deported to his home country.
Doctors may be accustomed to high salaries in some parts of the world, but, first and foremost, a doctor’s position in society is to save lives and treat the sick when his skills are adequate for such activity.
These are not plastic surgeons who operate at the behest and discretion of paying clients. These are people who have been trained to treat medical emergencies and save lives. It is inconceivable that any doctor would refuse to act based on the absence of the paltry sum of SR1,000.
It was rightly explained to this doctor that the government would step in and pay the fees for those citizens unable to pay. After all, the revenues generated by Saudi Arabia’s oil reserves are vast and should be put to use to ensure the health of its citizens.
Still, the doctor refused to act. Such a person does not deserve to be called a doctor nor to retain any position of respect in this society. The situation was horrendous and one of those with the power to change it turned out to be monstrous.
Saudi Gazette