An incorrect medical diagnosis led to a child being left with a hole in his nose cartilage after a doctor failed to spot a battery inserted up one of his nostrils. “I took my two-year-old, Ahmed, to Al-Qunfudah Hospital because he had a pain in his nose,” said the child's father, Abdullah Kheder. “The emergency doctor inspected my son and then gave him an X-ray. He then said Ahmed just had a swelling.” Abdullah took Ahmed home, but the pain continued and three days later he took him back to the same doctor. “I told him that I wanted Ahmed to be seen by a specialist, but the doctor refused saying he was fine,” Kheder said. “I ignored him and went to the manager who referred me to an ENT specialist, who discovered there was a piece of plastic in his nose. He tried to get it out rather clumsily but couldn't, so he prescribed some medicines and asked me to come back in three days.” Ahmed later started to bleed and his father took him to King Fahd Hospital in Jeddah, where they discovered a remote control battery inside his nose. They immediately removed it. The battery had, however, been inside Ahmed's nose for a week, where it had started to erode, damaging the cartilage and burning a hole. “Following three days of treatment, Ahmed improved and was discharged from hospital,” his father said. “But who is responsible for the permanent hole in his nose cartilage?” “The father has every right to make a complaint against the doctor,” said Dr. Abdul Fattah, Director of Health Affairs in Qunfudah. “It was the doctor's carelessness which led to this.” Kheder has asked the Ministry of Health to investigate the case.
