TAIF – Police are looking for an Arab woman who used her apartment in the Al-Faisaliah neighborhood as a daycare center for autistic children under 8 years, Al-Watan daily reported. She also received children with various disabilities and charged SR1,600 a month for each of them. Taif Health Affairs was tipped off about the illegal activities carried out by the woman, who did not have any official licenses to provide such services, and referred the matter to the police. A spokesman for the directorate Siraj Al-Humaidan said no one is allowed to practice a medical profession and dispense medications unless he or she has obtained the proper licenses. Al-Watan found out about the center before the directorate did and sent one of its reporters there. He met the Arab woman and pretended he had a disabled child. Inside the place, he found several children who appeared to be suffering from autism and were attended by what appeared to be undocumented expatriate women. The woman was suspicious from the outset and started asking the reporter many questions about how he found out about the place and who told him about it. After she was finally satisfied, the woman said her clinic was run by speech therapists and specialists in physical disabilities. The reporter explained to her the fake condition of his son and she immediately provided a diagnosis of Down's syndrome without asking to see the boy first. Then she gave a prescription for some medications that were not licensed by the Health Ministry and could only have been obtained through illegal channels. Ghada Baqeel, the chairwoman of the private education committee at the Madinah Chamber of Commerce and Industry who also owns an autistic center, said the Ministry of Social Affairs pays for the education of autistic children. However, some families do not know that. “We send a list of autistic children treated at our center to the Ministry of Social Affairs and they pay us all expenses and costs,” she said.
