The Shariah Medical Commission in Jeddah only probes five percent of the total number of medical errors at hospitals in the city, said Abdul Rahman Al-Ejeri, the commission's Chairman, reported Al-Hayat Arabic daily on Saturday. He accused the Ministry of Health of not having a well-defined mechanism to tackle doctors who make mistakes. He also suggested that the ministry introduce a computer system to track the names of doctors who are negligent. He said the ministry should be held accountable for the increasing number of medical errors. He accused the ministry of being lenient in many cases. Al-Ejeri said that having a record of mistakes will save the lives of patients. The ministry will also be able to get rid of incompetent doctors. He added that special courts should be created to consider such cases. He said commissions usually consist of legal experts and doctors from the Higher Education department, public hospitals and Health Affairs. Cases also take a long time because there are too few commissions.
