Following the mysterious death of a disabled resident at the Madinah Comprehensive Rehabilitation Center, Abdullah Al-Yusuf, undersecretary for social services at the Ministry of Social Affairs, has vowed to resign if his ministry is proven negligent in providing care to the residents of the center who he described as a “dear segment of society”. “We are human beings and we can't claim that we are perfect, but we are doing our best to meet the requirements of this dear segment of society,” he said. Al-Yusuf said he will announce the results of an ongoing investigation which will reveal the circumstances that lead to the death of the disabled resident who allegedly escaped from the center and was later found dead inside a septic tank. While admitting to a few cases of employees abusing patients, Al-Yusuf said the ministry doesn't take such cases lightly and vowed to punish anyone found guilty of negligence or abuse. In the past three months, abuse of residents at the Afif and Taif rehabilitation centers and several unexplained deaths at the Tabuk and Madinah centers have been reported. Al-Yusuf accused the media of sensationalizing these incidents, which he described as “isolated” and pointed out at there are 37 rehabilitation centers in the Kingdom, which house over 9000 residents. “Despite all of the accusations we deal wholeheartedly with the media. But it should be understood that such incidents anger us because Almighty Allah and the country's leaders entrust us with the lives of the residents,” he said while adding that no one was above the law. Al-Yusuf said the ministry is working on plans to privatize the Kingdom's rehabilitation centers. This will allow the ministry to concentrate on monitoring and improving the standard of services provided to residents. “This does not mean the ministry will wash its hand from these centers. On the contrary, the privatization process will enable it to tighten control over these companies and closely monitor their performance. We're also working on a bundle of new security measures including installing high-quality surveillance cameras that will keep a record of the movement of every inmate for a month,” he said. __
