Mashari Al-Yazidi
JEDDAH — Fake medical certificates are now available in Jeddah at a cheap rate. SR50 is the charge for a certificate allowing one day’s leave. Anybody can obtain this certificate if he/she wanted medical leave without genuine reasons.
Okaz correspondent visited a polyclinic in East Jeddah to get a medical certificate and got it within five minutes. The receptionist will send you to the general physician for checkup after taking the fee.
“I asked the receptionist about the possibility of getting a medical certificate to avoid salary cut for absence from work. The receptionist then sent me to the concerned doctor,” said the correspondent.
The doctor was cooperative but insisted that he would not give leave for more than two days. The doctor issued the certificate based on the illness mentioned by the correspondent — throat inflammation — although he was not suffering from any disease. He asked the correspondent to pay SR50 as fee for diagnosis, which actually did not happen. The nurse took the certificate and put the clinic’s official stamp on it.
Doctors at many clinics across the Kingdom issue such fake medical certificates in lieu of money. Some websites offer such services to the public and are ready to provide medical certificates from either public or private hospitals depending on their clients’ demand.
The certificates are issued ion official papers of hospitals to ensure credibility.
There is a Twitter account that sells medical certificates and it has 1,122 followers. A similar account has been established on Instagram by a social media activist to sell fake medical certificates to potential customers. He charges SR100 for each certificate.
The seller on the Instagram has placed an empty copy of the medical certificate stamped by King Khaled University Hospital in Riyadh, without any diagnosis report.
