AMMAN — A person accompanying a patient to an Irbid
hospital assaulted a doctor Monday for banning him entry into the delivery
room.
It was the fifth
attack on medical cadres in the Kingdom in a week, and comes two days after the
Ministry of Health threatened legal
action against those who attack doctors.
اضافة اعلان
On Saturday, the
Health Ministry said that it will be taking necessary legal action to deal with
those who assault medical cadres while they are performing their jobs. It said
the purpose is to preserve the rights and integrity of medical personnel, and
ensure their protection in their workplace.
There were two
cases of assault on ministry employees working in Prince Hamzah and
Al-Bashir
hospitals last Wednesday and Friday, the ministry said. It said that it will
not tolerate such cases, adding that the number of assaults on medical cadres
has declined in the recent period, but it is committed to stopping this
phenomenon, and preventing it from occurring.
The ministry
expressed appreciation to its medical cadres for the great role they play, and
pledged to exert further efforts to protect the society and provide it with
various forms of health care.
Dr Ziad
Al-Zoubi, president of the
Jordan Medical Association (JMA), told
Jordan
News that the syndicate “stands by our members against such action and we
regret the occurrence of such incidents with doctors”.
He said the
problem has several reasons, the most prominent of which is an insufficient
number of medical staff to examine a large number of patients, particularly to
the emergency department.
Association
member Dr Tariq Al-Khateeb speculated that standoffs could be the result of
pressure which doctors are exposed to due to their long working hours. He said
another reason could be the failure to activate the case classification system
which shows the extent of priority of patients, differentiating between those
who could wait, and others who require immediate medical intervention.
Zoubi and
Khateeb concurred that the lenient penalties in Jordan would not succeed as
deterrents to ensure no recurrence of attacks.
Both said that
measures taken against those who assaulted doctors are mostly imprisonment for
a period of six months, in line with article 187 in the
Jordanian Penal Code,
which can be replaced by a fine. But they noted that harsher penalties in Saudi
Arabia slap 10 year prison terms and hefty fines on assailants.
Dr Abdul Latif
Abbas is an internist at a public hospital, who said he was insulted and beaten
last week by the brother of one of his patients.
“We need to be
in a safe environment,” he said. “I am here to serve people. I have to be on
the side of the people, why are we treated as enemies when we are there to help
them?”
Abbas, who noted
that he was shocked by the situation he was exposed, said he was tending for 12
patients simultaneously at a medical facility, when he was subjected to verbal
and physical abuse.
Recalling the
incident, he said one of his patients, accompanied by seven others, beat him.
He said he was not sure of the reason.
But he added
that “even after assaulting me, I told my colleagues not to falter in providing
good services to patients.”
“I understand
the concern of a patient’s family, but it is not a justification for attacking
doctors,” he added.
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