KFSH to sue tobacco firms and their agents

RIYADH, 30 November — Saudi Arabia’s main cancer hospital will sue tobacco firms and their agents in the kingdom for SR11 billion ($2.9 billion) to recompense 25 years of treatment of smoking-related illnesses, a health executive said yesterday.

Executive Director General of King Faisal Specialist Hospital (KFSH), Anwar Al-Jabarti, said the decision was taken after negotiations with tobacco firms held earlier this year in Geneva ended without an agreement.

The hospital will file a lawsuit in Saudi courts "soon", while more cases will be filed in the United States and Europe at a later date, Al-Jabarti said.

A team of Saudi and foreign legal experts are currently taking the necessary procedures to file the case, he said.

KFSH claims it has treated some three million patients over the past 25 years for illnesses caused directly or indirectly by smoking, at a cost of almost $3 billion.

The hospital is the main health facility in the Kingdom for the treatment of cancer and other major diseases. Al-Jabarti said the hospital holds a complete account of cancer

cases in the Kingdom and the number of tumors in Kingdom and the Gulf, and this will be submitted with the lawsuit.

Saudi Arabia, with a population of 22 million, including 16.5 million Saudi nationals, has one of the highest smoking rates in the world despite decisions to hike customs duty on cigarettes to 100 percent.

The government is contemplating doubling the duty on tobacco products to 200 percent.

Since current year’s budget showed a deficit of SR200 million and the hospital is reviewing the fees of treatments and contracts for medical coverage with some companies.

In a function organized to mark the 20th anniversary of the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Fahd’s accession to the throne, Al-Jabarti appealed to businessmen to invest in the research schemes of the hospital. The hospital’s new cancer center in north Riyadh, with a capacity for 800 cancer patients, is scheduled to open in two months. Another 300-bed, SR300 million specialist hospital is going to be commissioned in Riyadh with private participation.

KFSH is currently discussing the viability of founding a medical college in collaboration with the King Faisal Foundation.

More than 22,000 patients are admitted in the hospital annually with an average stay of eight days. The hospital undertakes 1,100 open-heart surgeries, 3,600 cardiac catheterizations, 50 kidney transplants and 100 marrow transplants, according to Dr. Abdul Rahim Al-Naeem, director of operations.