Authorities bar 20 medics from traveling

Authorities have imposed a travel ban on 20 health practitioners, doctors and technicians who worked at Rafha Central Hospital’s nursery department.

The ban came after the department caused total or partial blindness to four children at the hospital.

The medical commission at Tabuk will launch a full- scale investigation for Asil and Rasil, twin sisters whose father alleged they were blinded during their stay at the hospital as a result of medical error, on Tuesday.

Thamer Al- Shamari told a local newspaper that he has submitted a complaint against the hospital.

He said other parents whose children were blinded under similar circumstances have also filed action against the hospital.

The father of the girls said the Ministry of Health should bear the cost of treatment at the best medical centers in Germany or the US.

Al- Shamari discovered the condition of his daughters 14 days after they left the hospital. “I took them both to an eye doctor who said they suffered from a severance of the retina,” he said, adding that the oxygen overdose they were exposed to caused this separation.

One doctor involved in the case was allowed to travel. The Director of Health Affairs at the northern borders, Muhammad Al-Habdan, said that the doctor submitted a legal proxy after paying medical insurance in case claims were made against him.