THE NUMBER OF PATIENTS ABANDONED BY THEIR FAMILIES IN HOSPITALS IS INCREASING

  • 30/03/2022

Kuwait City: Despite shedding light on the humanitarian challenges that patients who have been abandoned in hospitals face, as well as the suffering of medical and nursing staff as a result of some families refusing to receive their relatives and instead choosing to leave them in the wards for extended periods of time, this phenomenon persists, increasing the burden on the medical system. According to health officials, the number of long-term patients whose families refused to accept them and who are being cared for in hospitals has risen to approximately 230, with patients being cared for at Farwaniya, Mubarak Al-Kabeer, Sabah, Amiri, Adan, and Jahra. 


For years, the doctors and nursing staff have been frustrated by this issue, especially when they encounter tough humanitarian scenes while overseeing patients who are approved to go but cannot locate somebody to complete the discharge procedures. Many sick patients have been in hospital wards for months, while others have been there for years with no visits. The old Jahra Hospital also accepts cases requiring a longer stay due to chronic ailments or injuries that necessitate an indefinite stay. 

Some patients' relatives refuse to complete the discharge processes because they do not have a suitable place for them at home or are unable to assign a nurse to offer home medical care for the patient. The presence of many elderly patients who have not gotten a single visit from anyone for lengthy periods of time, which intensifies their agony and pain, is one of the awful human images that health officials repeated to the media on a regular basis. In the same context, the Ministry of Health unveiled a plan to use the old Jahra Hospital to provide medical care to patients from other hospitals who have chronic ailments and require protracted stays.

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