RIYADH, 4 July — The Ministry of Health has dismissed several doctors and paramedics belonging to 11 nationalities on charges of violating various health regulations and professional ethics, press reports said yesterday.
With the latest action against 115 doctors and technicians, the blacklist of health workers reached 361, the Okaz newspaper quoted Husein Al-Fareehi, secretary-general of the Saudi Council of Health Specialists, as saying.
The blacklisted doctors and paramedics have been prohibited from pursuing their profession in the country in the interest of the public, he said.
The penalized health workers had been working in the departments of general surgery, ENT surgery, dermatology, ophthalmology, internal medicine, general medicine, tumor center, dentistry, nursing, pediatric medicine, laboratory and pharmacy.
They included 34 Egyptians, 29 Filipinos, 18 Indians, 12 Britons, seven Canadians, five Sudanese, three Syrians, three Pakistanis, two Poles, one Bangladeshi and an Algerian. Fifty-eight of them are women.
The Ministry of Health recently announced that it would set up a data bank on medical malpractice in the Kingdom. The data bank will be managed by the Council of Health Specialists in close cooperation with the directorate general for quality assurance at the ministry. It is hoped that the move will curb medical malpractice in both government and private sector hospitals to a great extent.
