Muhammad Al-Kadoumi
Okaz/Saudi Gazette
JAZAN — Over 20 medical errors have taken place in Jazan hospitals in a matter of one year, according to sources at Jazan Health Affairs. This is an alarming number.
The people of Jazan have described the medical services in Jazan as appalling and below standard, attributing this problem to the shortage of qualified medical staff at the hospital.
Some residents have decided not to go to these hospitals for fear that they will become victims of medical errors, and have called upon authorities to find a solution to this problem.
Okaz/Saudi Gazette visited some hospitals in the region and noted their weaknesses and substandard services. It was observed that most hospitals in the region suffer from a shortage of beds and medical staff, and long waiting lists for patients.
The healthcare services provided by these hospitals do not match up with the resources the government has provided for these hospitals.
Another plague is the excessive crowds at these hospitals. There is also the problem of low-quality catering, cleaning, and maintenance services.
A large number of patients believe that the administrations of some hospitals should be replaced and new medical directors should be appointed to deal with these problems and provide patients with top-notch medical services.
Some of the hospitals do not have adequate quantities of critically needed medication.
King Fahd Hospital, the largest medical institution in the region, is one of the hospitals that face such problems. The hospital’s emergency unit handles hundreds of cases every day while the unit does not have enough beds and so is the case for the intensive care unit and the wards.
What compounds the situation is that the number of patients who get treated at the hospital is on the increase.
The hospital has been suffering from a mysterious virus that has spread in different departments and infected the ICU, orthopedics and neurology departments. Jazan Health Affairs has failed to isolate and exterminate this virus.
The region does not have enough specialized medical institutions such as eye hospitals, maternity and children’s hospitals, cardiac centers and cancer centers.
There’s an acute shortage of cold storage. Morgues at some hospitals have become full and there is no space to accommodate more bodies. This problem caused a lot of trouble to residents when a relative dies, as most hospitals refuse to accept any corpse in their cold storage. The family has to pull some strings to find a place.
Abdul Al-Mahmadi complained about the low-quality medical services in the region. He said he prefers to travel to a hospital in another region to get proper treatment. Another citizen complained that most gynecology and obstetrics departments do not have female doctors. Most women are obliged to go to polyclinics where they can be examined by female doctors.
Radiology and laboratory departments in most hospitals have their own problems as well. The medical equipment is old and malfunctions frequently and the test results are not trustworthy. At King Fahd Hospital, patients have to wait for eight months to do an MRI because there is only one machine there.
In Dhamad Governorate, which consists of 270 towns and villages populated by 80,000, there is only one hospital with 50 beds. Health experts said the governorate has a large number of people and the bed capacity of Dhamad General Hospital should be increased to 300 beds to meet the needs of the population.
What is strange is that there are many rooms on second floor of the hospital that are closed and are not being used to solve part of the problem of bed shortage. Many patients have been asking why these rooms have been kept locked.
The hospital’s emergency unit is in dire need of improvement and expansion. Some residents of the governorate wonder how long they should suffer before they could get proper medical treatment.
Some wonder why the hospital’s capacity has not increased despite the huge allocations of funds made for the health sector in all the Kingdom’s regions.
