The Ministry of Health (MOH) has announced the closure of a hospital north of Riyadh, as precautionary measure, and interrogated its owner, after a monitoring committee discovered a number of irregularities which caused complications for patients and low level of cleanness and sterilization. It indicated that an investigation team, including a plastic surgery consultant and an anesthetist, found that the operating room is in a very bad condition with old equipment in need of maintenance, in addition to that the hospital has no anesthetist, noting that a patient has been anesthetized by an anesthetist who is not under the hospital sponsorship and brought from another hospital in Jeddah. Also, there is no any consultant doctor in the hospital and the doctor who operated on a patient is registered to work under a consultant.
The MOH indicated that the measure comes in implementation of the decision by the private health facilities violations committee, confirming that currently there are no any hospitalized patients in the hospital and all staff members have been evacuated from the hospital.
In addition to the abovementioned irregularities, the MOH pointed out to the expiry of hospital license, municipality license and civil defense license, noting that the hospital has previously undertaken to tackle the irregularities including the expiry of the hospital license, but they did not abide by their acknowledgment, therefore the committee decided to close the hospital and keep it closed until they renew all regulatory licenses and provide the basic workforce, and evaluation of the hospital by an advisory committee in order to ensure safety of patients.
Within the same vein, the MOH noted that the decision comes within the framework of its keenness to maintain the patients’ health and safety, stressing that it will not tolerate any negligence that affects the health and safety of citizens and residents, and it will continue applying heaviest penalties and statutory measures against any health institutions not abiding by the required quality standards of health services. This is in order to oblige these institutions to improve their situations and redress the irregularities, in line with the statutory procedures.