Saudi Gazette report JEDDAH — The Kingdom pays the lowest compensation among the Gulf Cooperation Council countries to victims of medical malpractice, a lawyer said, quoting a recent study. “The compensation for medical mistakes in the Kingdom ranges from SR90,000 to SR150,000 while in other countries, it reaches up to SR1 million or more,” Muhammad Al-Dabash told A-Riyadh Arabic newspaper. He called for revising the procedures the Ministry of Health's medical commissions apply when assessing compensation for patients who suffer because of medical errors. “The commissions should look into the psychological impact a medical error would have on a patient. Sometimes medical errors leave irreparable scars in a patient's mind, in addition to permanent physical deformities. Such patients should be adequately compensated due to the enormity of the medical error,” he stressed. Dr. Suhaila Zain Al-Abideen, a member of the National Society for Human Rights (NSHR), said all medical commissions decide financial compensation according to the amount of the blood money (diya) set by the Shariah. In other words, they assess the severity of the physical harm without taking into consideration the psychological effects. She called on the commissions to have members of the NSHR on board in order to help in setting proper compensation that is commensurate with the damage caused by a medical error. “Low compensation verdicts and slow procedures for paying compensation can undoubtedly contribute to a rise in medical errors,” Al-Abideen warned while asking how the commission arrived at a figure of SR11,000 in compensation for a patient who had suffered enormous disabilities due to a medical error. “Why do the commissions fail to look at the impact of the medical error? Do they not know that these patients will have to pay a lot of money for rehabilitation? Who is going to pay this money?” she asked while stressing that the Shariah requires psychological damage to patients to be compensated.
