As medical errors in the Kingdom increase, so does the punishment. Three doctors were fined SR 537,000 for committing two deadly medical mistakes that claimed the life of a Pakistani national and caused of irreparable damages to two Saudi children. But who paid the money. An insurance company. Tawuniya Insurance Company told al-Hayat that a Pakistani woman, resident of Riyadh, lodged a complaint against a surgeon in Riyadh, accusing him of making a deadly medical error while operating on her husband to remove his gall bladder. The Shariah medical committee in Riyadh probed the complaint and held the surgeon accountable for the death of the woman's husband, ordering him to pay SR 100,000 in blood money for his inheritors. The committee also fined him SR10,000 for public right and case fees. Another medical error made by a consultant of anesthesiology was reported in Jeddah. When a child was undergoing a herniorrhaphy surgery, a medical error during anesthesia was made. The Shariah committee decided that the anesthesiologist was responsible for the hypoxia and complications the child developed in his respiratory system, fining him SR137,000 for the partial damage the child suffered in some of his vital organs. The insurance company again was left holding the bag. One more report said that a gynecologist at a Jeddah hospital made a medical error while a woman was going through delivery. The report said that the late intervention of the doctor, coupled with his ill decision not to admit the new-born baby in the Neo-Intensive Care Unit (NICO), contributed to the deteriorating health of the baby. Ater investigating the case, the Sharia medical committee in Makkah ordered the doctor to pay the family SR300, 000 in compensation of the permanent damage he caused to the baby. He was also fined SR10, 000 for public right. With the new law requiring that all medical errors of physicians and dentists working in the Kingdom be insured against, the insurance company footed the bill for all these legal expenses. The law, initiated by the Ministry of the Health, was endorsed by the King. The Ministry of Health drafted the new law based on the significant increase in the number of the medical errors in the Kingdom. In the future, the insurance against medical errors will be applied to all the medical staff working in the Kingdom including nurses and medical technicians. __
