A Shariah Medical Commission in Jeddah is probing the death of a 13-year-old Saudi girl after a surgeon allegedly failed to perform an urgent appendectomy on her, it was reported in an Arabic daily newspaper on Tuesday. Abdul Rahman Al-Ujaiari, chief of the commission, said that an Arab resident surgeon had testified that he opened the patient's abdomen to remove the inflamed appendix, which he found to be gangrenous. However, he said he had stopped the procedure and closed the incision with sutures because he believed the hospital lacked the necessary facilities to deal with such a case. A few days after the operation the girl developed a high grade fever and features of toxemia which resulted in her death. Her brother said that his sister walked into the hospital and was taken out on a stretcher. He said she had a fever and was vomiting. The doctors in the emergency unit said she was suffering from an inflamed appendix and needed to undergo an urgent appendectomy, he added. He claimed that the assistant surgeon, who is a resident at the hospital, performed the operation. He claimed that neither the surgeon nor the ward's doctors told them anything about the operation. He said that on the same day the treating doctor discharged her, she developed complications. The surgeon prescribed her painkillers without telling the family that he did not perform the surgery. “Instead, he told us these were normal post-operative symptoms.” The girl later developed serious complications which saw her readmitted to the hospital. The family then discovered that her appendix had not been removed, said the brother. Al-Ujaiari said all the indications were that the cause of death was the failure of the doctor to remove the appendix although he claimed that it was gangrenous. The case has been adjourned to Sep. 15 to hear the testimony of the hospital owner and medical director.
