Palestinian female patient suing a plastic surgeon

The woman claims the two doctors who operated on her refuse to see her whenever she visits their surgery. "Each of them blames the other for the mistakes that have led to my deformities," she said.

The woman said the Department of Health Affairs in Jeddah referred her to a large government hospital to ascertain whether or not there has been a medical mistake, adding that the head of the hospital's plastic surgery department is one of the plastic surgeons who operated on her.

Meanwhile, Dr. Ibrahim Ashari, a Saudi plastic surgery consultant and graduate of the University of Tübingen in Germany, said one of the doctors is not a specialist in the procedures that he carried out and lacks experience. Ashari, who headed a team of doctors who treated the woman, added that the doctor is in fact a specialist in nose correction procedures.

Dr. Ashari said the other doctor is a registrar and had no right to conduct such operations without the presence of a consultant.

Dr. Ashari blamed the complications, including the inflammation of all wounds, to the doctors' lack of specialization. "There was an uneven cut on both sides of the scalp. There were also remnants of stitching threads, a loss of hair on an area of 5-6 centimeter on the left side of the head, unjustified burns to the scalp, a cut in the lower lip and a deep wound in the upper eye brow," he said.

Dr. Ashari said he and his team have tried to set the deformities straight as best as they could, and that the mistakes have affected the patient mentally; Kazinform cites Arab News. See www.arabnews.com for full version.