A man is appealing a ruling by Makkah's Shariah Medical Commission because he is not satisfied with its decision to award his wife SR5,000 for permanent damage to her uterus caused by a doctor at a private hospital. The appeal by Ali Al-Bishi is to be considered next month by the Board of Grievances. The doctor who performed the operation had been found guilty of causing permanent damage to the wife's uterus during the process of cleaning it after a miscarriage. The doctor has left the Kingdom on an exit and return visa and has not returned. Al-Bishi said the verdict, that took three years to be handed down, was “unfair”. He said the doctor had decided on the procedure when his pregnant wife went to the private hospital, south of the city, because she was in pain. The doctor said that the one-and-a-half-month-old fetus had died inside his wife's uterus and the procedure was necessary for her safety. “She underwent the procedure and was discharged the following day after I paid the costs,” the husband said. He said that three days later she began feeling pain in her stomach and had problems urinating. They went back to the doctor, who prescribed medication and told his wife to walk more, said Al-Bishi. “My wife's condition deteriorated and we decided to have her examined at the government's Maternity and Obstetrics Hospital here where doctors said she was still pregnant but the fetus was in the abdominal cavity outside the uterus, which required surgery to extract the fetus and save my wife's life.” Medical reports have shown that the doctor at the private hospital had conducted the procedure without proper scanning and testing procedures. Al-Bishi said that the commission took too long to find the doctor guilty. The doctor had also been allowed to leave the Kingdom despite the fact that the case was ongoing.
