A reader says that he “took his father to a private hospital, to check for a minor illness, and there his condition was dealt with, and after entering the hospital days, the doctors said that he had a kidney failure,” believing that “the hospital gave him medicine by mistake, because his father was not suffering from anything In the kidneys before entering the hospital. "
He continued, "His father underwent a dialysis process, but he could not bear it and God died." He added, "The calamity was that the hospital refused to hand us the body of our father to bury it in order to pay the hospital bill, and we had to pay it in order to improve his resting place."
The reader asks: Does the hospital have the right to refrain from handing over the body of the bill? Can we prove the medical error after the father was buried?
For his part, Legal Adviser Dr. Yusef Al-Sharif says, "This problem is very serious, and it can be abundant at this time from some private hospitals that consider people’s illness a trade that they profit from without taking into account the sanctity of their bodies, alive and dead, forgetting or forgetting that the medical profession is one of the greatest professions and a humanitarian message before it The profession and livelihood, and the epidemic we are going through these days, are the best proof and proof of the greatness of this profession and the emergence of medical staff as a first line of defense in this ordeal, but our condolences are that everywhere and every field is a lot of good and little good that must be taken on his hands to obtain his command and punishment What are they messing with. "
From a legal point of view, Al-Sharif says that this problem has more than one aspect. First, how right is the hospital to refrain from delivering the body of the deceased to his family on the charge of the bill ?, answering, “Of course, the hospital may not detain the dead body of the deceased and refrain from delivering it to its relatives for burial unless it is death on suspicion A criminal, as if a person was brought to the hospital and conducting examinations and examinations, showing that there is a criminal suspicion, such as a case of poisoning, killing, or the like.
As for refraining from handing over the corpse to its relatives other than it is due to pay the hospital bill, it is not permissible while it is a criminal and punishable, and it is a violation of the sanctity of the deceased who is punished by the stipulation of Article 316 of the Penal Code, which stipulates that anyone who violates the sanctity of a corpse is imprisoned for a period not exceeding a year, and here it is possible Some people ask where the hospitals are right, so we say that there is a difference between two legal matters related to honoring the dead and burial and not violating his sanctity and speeding up according to the law in his burial, and between the hospital collecting its bill, which is less because it relates to material and illegal matters, and the law guarantees any right holder to exercise his right by legal means The hospital has the right to claim your heirs Adding legal methods without violating the sanctity of the deceased. ”The second aspect in this case is how to prove the hospital’s refusal to deliver the dead body to the bill, which is, as we say in the law, a material fact that can be proven in all ways, by the testimony of witnesses who were present, at the time of notification of the deceased’s family, of death With the timing of receiving the body through the timing of death, which is proven by the death certificate, as well as the follow-up of the movement of the relatives of the deceased in the hospital accounts department, and through the timing of hospital cameras, and the parents ’messages regarding the death arrangements and equipment, and among them may be evidence of delaying procedures and any other means.”
As for the third aspect in this case regarding proving the medical error after the burial, it is by submitting an application to the Public Prosecution accompanied by the available medical papers. The Public Prosecution shall refer the complaint to the Medical Responsibility Committee for its consideration and prepare a report of the existence of a medical error or not.
In the event that the papers are insufficient, the committee will have to request permission from the Public Prosecution to extract the body and dissect it, after the approval of the deceased's relatives, and of course this request must be in a period of time close to the date of death so that the body has not been decomposed and it is difficult to know the truth of the crime, just as it must That there are serious reasons and strong suspicions of a crime that caused death until the committee and then the Public Prosecution respond to such a request out of respect for the sanctity of the dead.
As for the fourth aspect, regarding the hospital’s responsibility, if the medical error is proven, it has more than one responsibility: an administrative responsibility and is administratively rewarded by issuing an ultimatum to the hospital official, stopping it from work temporarily for a period not exceeding six months, or stopping it permanently or issuing an ultimatum to the hospital as a moral entity or temporarily closing it A period not exceeding six months or permanently closed.
It also falls under criminal accountability in accordance with the Medical Liability Act, which requires imprisonment for a period not exceeding two years and a fine of no more than five hundred thousand dirhams, or one of these two penalties to arrange death from medical error, with the performance of the legal payment and the value of two hundred thousand dirhams.
The questioner also has the right to file a civil compensation claim, which is known as a civil liability claim, by requesting compensation for all the physical damages that his father suffered from the moment he received the wrong treatment until his death, as well as any expenses incurred as a result of that in addition to the material and moral damage caused to you by the death of his father.
And this lawsuit is filed with both (the hospital, the doctor who gave the wrong prescription, and the insurance company insured by the hospital because private hospitals are obligated to take out compulsory insurance to face such cases.