When will it finally sink in our society that no human being can be treated as the property of another human being, traded back and forth, paid for and repossessed when bills are not paid? When a consumer buys a car on credit and finds himself unable to make monthly payments, the bank that advanced the loan has every right to take back the car. The agreement is that the lender rightfully owns the car. Since when do such financial terms govern human beings? A Pakistani man near Bisha was forced to take his wife to the hospital in the seventh month of her pregnancy as she entered labor. Health exigencies mandated that a Caesarian-section be performed in order to save the lives of both the baby and the mother. After an appropriate recovery time, the mother was given permission to leave the hospital but the husband was unable to take her home until he paid nearly SR3,000 in fees. The child, born two months premature, weighed only 600 grams at birth and was forced to remain in an incubator for the past three months. The father would now like to take his child home but he allegedly has been told that he must pay a fee of nearly SR30,000 before that can be done. However, the hospital says that the baby girl is being kept for her own safety and not because of the outstanding bill as alleged by the father. But if the father's claims are right then the hospital does not have the right to hold patients against their wishes (in the absence of a court order), especially the right to prevent parents from taking home their newborns. __
