Al-Khatarish Okaz/Saudi Gazette JAZAN — Complaints by the residents of Jazan about poor healthcare services did not begin after the city's General Hospital was closed down following a deadly fire last December. Many patients said their "endless suffering" aggravated after the fire disaster due to what they called "clear recklessness" by doctors and other medical staff in dealing with people visiting the polyclinic that has been operating as a temporary alternative to the closed down medical tower. They are demanding quick solutions to the problems they face in receiving essential medical care. Okaz/Saudi Gazette visited a few medical institutions in the region to verify the veracity of complaints by the patients and look into the standard of healthcare services provided to the public. Their first stop was Al-Shatea Polyclinic in downtown Jazan, which has been renamed the Temporary Jazan General Hospital. The time was 3.00 a.m. A reporter feigned pain in his left kidney after seeing a young man wriggling with pain. The young man with a severe kidney ailment was visiting the facility accompanied by his father. The doctor on duty received the reporter and asked him what he was suffering from. He took a short time to check him up. The doctor did not follow the standard methods for checking up a patient, like taking the pulse rate, body temperature and blood pressure. The doctor instructed the "patient" to go immediately to King Fahd Hospital in Abu Areesh or Prince Muhammad Bin Nasser Hospital, which is far away from downtown Jazan. He said he was a general practitioner and the patient must see a specialist who can diagnose his condition accurately. The reporter said he did not have a car that would take him to any of these hospitals. The doctor apologized that they did not have an ambulance and advised him to phone the operations room of the Saudi Red Crescent Society. The doctor did not take the trouble to phone the Red Crescent. The reporter got the impression that the doctor was clearly nonchalant about his patients' circumstances. At the temporary hospital's gate, the reporter met the young man who was suffering from kidney pain. He was angry and concerned at the recklessness and negligence by hospital staff about patients' lives. He told the reporter that he was compelled to go to Prince Muhammad Bin Nasser Hospital, which is more than 25 kilometers away. The reporter decided to follow the young man accompanied by his father to Prince Muhammad Bin Nasser Hospital. When they arrived it was 4.00 a.m. The young man went to the doctor on duty but he referred him to the emergency doctor. The reporter accompanied them to the emergency room. They were shocked not to find anyone there but the cleaner, who helped the young man to lie down on the bed. The reporter watched the cleaner's humanitarian initiative amid the absence of any nurses, male or female. Meanwhile, in the ladies' section of the ER, a young woman was shouting angrily. When the reporter asked her why she was so angry, she said her mother had an eye surgery and her doctor had advised her to visit the emergency room in case of any complications. She brought her mother to the ER when she complained of severe pain. The doctor tried to give her a shot of paracetamol though she had a blood condition that does not permit this. The daughter stopped the doctor, saying he should have checked her case history.
