A man named Mohammed Al-Fatehi shared intriguing details about losing "one of his eyes" at the hands of a doctor who caused blindness in six people in Al-Qassim, Saudi Arabia. In an interview with the "Ya Hala" program, he recounted that he initially visited the doctor, who told him he had cataracts. He followed up until he was informed that he needed surgery.
He went on to say that he underwent the operation, which was successful, but his vision was not good. He informed the doctor about this, and the doctor assured him that the symptoms would fade after a while. Indeed, they disappeared after ten days, but then a haze developed in the eye again.
Al-Fatehi continued: "I informed the doctor about the haze, and he said he would perform laser surgery to remove it. Days went by without the surgery, and when I asked him about it, he said the lens was not adjusted and he couldn’t perform the laser." He added, "Every time I visited the doctor, he would say it was inflammation or something else, and my vision continued to decline. I decided to consult another specialist, who informed me that I needed a cornea transplant because there was a problem with my eye."
He concluded: "Now I can't see at all, and when I asked the specialist if this was a medical error, he said he couldn’t determine, but the cornea was filled with fluid," emphasizing that the rulings issued do not compensate him for his loss of sight.
The Saudi Health Authority ordered the doctor to compensate several patients after they underwent simple procedures related to cataract removal, which resulted in their blindness. Local newspaper "Al-Watan" reported that the doctor performed varying cataract extraction procedures for six of his patients at a private hospital in Al-Qassim, which ended in the blindness of these six patients due to his severe medical errors in these operations.
The newspaper confirmed that the compensation rulings by the authority came after it was proven that the doctor made mistakes and performed operations that did not conform to medical standards and norms, while no legal action had been taken against him, and he remains in his position.
The newspaper also noted that the patients were suffering from the same ailment, cataracts, and had the procedures performed by the same doctor, which should normally take no longer than half an hour. However, the patients became suspicious of mistakes by the doctor after their operations lasted for several hours, resulting in corneal damage and blindness following the procedure.
The Minister of Health has called for immediate intervention to alleviate the suffering of the doctor’s victims, to treat them at the ministry’s expense, and to hold accountable those responsible for performance evaluation and follow-up.
It is worth mentioning that the Saudi Central Bank had set January 1, 2022, as the date to begin implementing a medical malpractice insurance document after announcing the issuance of the standard document template.
