A Saudi woman recounts her suffering after a “failed liposuction” and criticizes the “procrastination of the cause”.

A Saudi woman has revealed details of her exposure to a medical error during a botched “liposuction” operation that left her with permanent disability.

The Saudi girl, Ibtisam, said she went to a private hospital to have an “abdominal and dorsal suction” operation in 2020, noting that she “suffered from complications after the operation”.

And she confirmed, during an intervention with a program on the “Golfo Rotana” channel, that an Arab doctor residing in the Kingdom had told her that these complications were normal, and then it was discovered that they were burns resulting from the use of the aspiration.

According to her statement, she was “referred to a Saudi consultant, in the same clinic, to examine the entire abdominal area and write a report in the presence of a hospital official.”

She continued: “I was transferred to another resident Arab doctor to correct skin deformities and to perform sessions to improve the color of the skin after it turned black,” and at that time the doctor who performed the operation se he went away, she said.

She revealed that she had “filed a complaint with the Saudi Ministry of Health” and was summoned by medical officials to take her “statement on what happened”, before being informed that “the private clinic has not responded”.

Clinic officials contacted her to meet with their lawyer and offered her 100,000 riyals to drop the complaint, but she “refused”.

Then the clinic’s lawyer told her, “Wait 4 or 5 years for the case proceedings to finish,” which means “he won’t get his rights,” as she put it.

Regarding the reasons for her refusal to file the case, she says that she “visited several doctors, and they told her that the treatment would cost more than 100 thousand, plus that this deformity will not be removed permanently, which means that it is a “permanent disability”.

She revealed that the private clinic did not contact her and did not respond to her attempts to communicate with them as she declined “the lawyer’s offer”.

She revealed that she was trying to meet the Sharia Board judge, but he “refused and sent her a document to wait her turn,” confirming that “he filed the case over a year ago and there are no developments.”

And Saudi law criminalizes “medical malpractice” and Article No. (28) of the Penal Code states that “it is punishable by imprisonment for a period of 6 months and a fine of 100,000 riyals, or one of these two penalties, in several legal cases, according to the website.legal advice”.