A group of government hospitals in Jeddah refused to receive an emergency case of an old man Tuesday who is still being treated at a private hospital after the family had failed to pay the charges which the hospital demanded to continue treatment. Earlier this month, Hamid Al-Mane', Minister of Health, warned hospitals not to turn away any emergency case. The hospitals said that there was no vacant bed to admit a patient in serious condition. The man was admitted in a private hospital in Jeddah after a heart stroke, but the hospital bill has come in a large size of SR130,000 after only 11 days of his admission, said Aziz Al-Saidi, the man's son. He was not even in the ICU, he claimed. The family talked to the hospital for a discount, but they were only told to seek help from philanthropists and to take the patient out of the hospital for non-payment, he said. The hospital medical report blatantly said he was in the ICU, Al-Saidi said, encouraging the government hospitals to refuse the case because it was reportedly a serious one to treat with no ICU beds available, the son said. “But they did not even bother to examine him to see if he was seriously ill,” he added. The case was explained to the Medical Commission in Jeddah, a government body, to help admit the man in a government hospital for free treatment, but that attempt failed, he said. The private hospital, however, denied the son's allegations. The bill could be slashed by a good percentage and the man is being treated in the ICU of the hospital, said Ahmad Abdulmenim, hospital's administrative manager. “We will investigate the physician who asked the family to take the man away while he was still in serious condition,” he said. Sami Badawood, Director of Jeddah Health Affairs, said that the Medical Commission has nothing to do with the case. The law is clear in this case, he said, if the patient is taken by a private vehicle to a private hospital, the bill is not the responsibility of the government. But if the patient is taken in a government ambulance to a private hospital, the bill becomes payable by the government, he said. Ba-dawood asked the family to see him to arrange for treatment.
