Doctors and nurses here have accused their hospital's owner of taking out bank loans in their names and not paying back the money. They have filed a complaint with the Preliminary Commission for Settlement of Labor Disputes at the Labor Office and are expecting a verdict on Sept. 13. Hospital owner's legal consultant has denied the accusations. “How could someone get loans from the bank in other people's names? That doesn't make sense.” Some of the doctors and nurses told Al-Madina Arabic daily that the owner stopped paying the installments one year after taking out the loans. As a result the bank now wants them to pay off the loans. The employees also alleged that they have not been paid their salaries for between four and nine months and are cash-strapped. They said a couple of years ago after being unpaid for four to six months, the employees took the owner's bait of bank loans in our names for payment of delayed salaries and use some part of the loans to develop the hospital. “He gave us his solemn promise that we had nothing to do with paying off the loans and we wouldn't be held responsible. He paid us our salaries from the loans and our role ended.” ‘Fraudulent methods' “Four years later, we were surprised to learn that the owner had stopped paying off the loans a year after the loans were taken out. Today, the bank wants us to pay the loans because they are in our names. The bank knows about all this. We were told that the bank dismissed two of its employees who colluded with the hospital owner and helped him get the loans and transfer them from our accounts to his account.” “We turned to the Labor Office for justice but the investigator advised us to resolve the matter amicably with the hospital owner because administrative and legal procedures could take a very long time, and there may not even be complete justice for us. Now we're waiting for a verdict on Sept. 13 and hope this complex problem will be solved.” “We agreed to the loan offer because we needed the money but the hospital owner used deceptive and fraudulent methods to fool us,” they said. They added that “most doctors and nurses in the hospital don't have licenses to practice medicine. They didn't pass the test of the Commission for Health Specialties, but decided to work because the hospital owner pressured them to do so. The hospital owner promised the employees that he would be responsible if anything happens to them. Added to this, some cleaners work as nurses during vacations and there's a doctor who still performs surgical operations although he was banned officially from doing after he was found guilty of committing a medical error.”
Hospital denies accusations The director of legal affairs at the hospital has denied all the accusations. “This doesn't make sense. You can't fool a layman to do something like that, let alone doctors. Over the past months, the hospital has defended them at the bank despite the fact that some of them were issued with arrest orders.” “The doctors who filed the case against the hospital didn't pass the test of the Commission for Health Specialties after attempting it twice. They work at the hospital as administrative staff. Their clinics are closed and the hospital pays them salaries. Some of them filed a complaint at the Labor Office because their salaries were delayed for one to two months, but not four to nine months as they have claimed.” Hattab Al-Eneizi, Director of Public Relations at the Ministry of Labor, was quoted by the newspaper as saying that the case was still being reviewed by the competent authority and no statement could be issued until a decision has been made,” he said.
