A private hospital's refusal to return to her family the body of a girl who died of swine flu until they pay SR600,000 in treatment fees has taken a new twist with the discovery that the girl was admitted to hospital under the identity of her sister in order to benefit from the latter's private medical insurance. “The insurance company would have paid 250,000 riyals of treatment costs with the rest covered by the Ministry of Health, but with the discovery of a conflict of identity the father is now deemed responsible for all the costs,” an unnamed hospital official told Al-Watan newspaper Tuesday. Health Affairs said Tuesday that they had been notified of the development. “The father has confessed to filling out hospital forms with false information and admitting his daughter to the hospital under her insured sister's name because he couldn't afford the bills,” Jeddah Health Affairs head Sami Badawoud said. Hospital documents provided to Al-Watan reportedly showed that Arwa received medical care under the name of her sister Intisar, a fact to which her father confessed upon the death of his daughter, leading the hospital to draw up a report containing the father's statements, a copy of which was presented to police, in order to allow him to proceed with the burial of his daughter. Arwa's body has now been returned to her family after her father signed a pledge to pay the amount due. Bereaved father Abu Bakr Mohammed Hassan justified his actions by referring to his laborer's salary of 2,000 riyals per month and the nine-member family under his care, including his aged mother who, he says, requires frequent medical attention due to her ailing health. “I could only afford to get insurance for four people in the family,” Hassan, a Yemeni national who has resided in the Kingdom for 33 years, told Al-Watan. “I've never felt like a foreign national here.” The case, which was reported in Saudi Gazette on September 14, is currently being investigated by Health Affairs following intervention by the National Society for Human Rights (NSHR) which earlier in the week described the hospital's stance as “illegal”. “This is in breach of royal orders to treat any swine flu case in government or private hospitals and provide the necessary care for patients at the expense of the state,” Hussein Al-Shareef of NSHR was reported as saying Monday. “Our representative has contacted Sami Badawoud, the General Manager of Health Affairs in Jeddah, concerning the matter.” Badawoud reiterated the point Tuesday. “Orders from us issued to all hospitals prohibit the withholding of any bodies due to monies owed, and state that all treatment of swine flu would be at the expense of the state,” Badawoud said.
