SAUDI ARABIA

Man buries wife's womb in place of fetus thanks to hospital mixup

Health Affairs admits 'procedural error' in Rafha hospital

October 29, 2017
The Rafha General Hospital where the terrible mix-up occurred.
The Rafha General Hospital where the terrible mix-up occurred.



Saudi Gazette report

RAFHA — A Saudi man buried what he thought was the dead fetus that he received from Rafha General Hospital where his wife, who was into the fifth month of pregnancy, had undergone hysterectomy following severe bleeding.

To his utter surprise, the man received a call from the hospital three days later saying that the fetus was still in the nursery and that he must come and receive it, Al-Watan newspaper reported.

The Ministry of Health's office in the Northern Border province told Al-Watan that preliminary investigations confirmed that the mixup was the result of a "procedural error" at the relevant department in the hospital. It said the citizen received his wife's uterus without the fetus.

The father, who asked not to be named, told Al-Watan that he took his wife, who was five months pregnant, to Rafha General Hospital with severe bleeding. The medical team that attended to her decided to surgically remove her uterus with the dead fetus, which posed a grave threat to her life.

"They told me that they had to surgically remove the fetus, which was dead, along with the uterus. Then they handed me what I thought was the fetus. We performed the Janazah prayer and buried it in a cemetery. Three days later, I was surprised to receive a call from the hospital administration saying there was a mistake: We were given the uterus instead of the fetus. The fetus was sent to the nursery where it remained for three days. We do not know how such a strange mistake occurred, why the fetus was transferred to the nursery in the first place and why we were not informed of this. All these questions were raised in the complaint I submitted to the hospital management," said the father.

He said the hospital management ignored his complain. He did not receive any gesture apologizing for what happened, nor did they promise to open an investigation.

He said he called the Ministry of Health's emergency number 937 to report the incident, but no response was received from the ministry either. "My wife did not suffer from any illnesses before this incident of bleeding," he added.

Al-Watan contacted Faleh Al-Ruwaili, director of public relations in the Health Affairs in the Northern Border province, for his comment.

"The citizen had filed complaint at the time and it was referred to the competent authority in Rafha health affairs, which launched an investigation. Initial results showed that there was a procedural error in delivering the sample after surgery from the concerned department in the hospital," he said, adding that the investigations were still ongoing.


October 29, 2017
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