A young woman enters the operations room for childbirth, she undergoes C-section, the baby girl comes out fine, she hugs her very tightly and she sheds few drops of tear from endless happiness. Few hours later, she calls all of her family members and close friends and invites them to a party she plans throwing at home to celebrate the birth of her third daughter.
Sometimes toward the end of the first day after childbirth, the mother starts feeling a sharp pain in the stomach, the doctor does not do anything about it and reassures her that everything is fine and is very well normal to feel a pain. But the pain goes for three days straight until she could no longer tolerate it, and suddenly dies.
She dies? how could she die from a stomach pain? Hasn't the doctor reassure her that everything is alright?? How could she die???? The husband goes crazy almost ready to lose his mind over the death of his wife. The doctor tells the husband that is god's work, and it was meant for his wife to die. The husband insists on finding out more, then he gets to be told that his wife's blood pressure and cholesterol were very high and caused her death.
Husband files a lawsuit to find out more about the real cause of his wife's death; officials tell him it will take some time before they authorize her autopsy. He goes home with his baby, and finds all family members and friends invited by his wife to celebrate the birth of their daughter mourning over his beloved's death...he cries and cries hard, and he suddenly decides to drop the lawsuit because even if they find out about the medical mistake that brought unfair end his wife's life , nothing will happen to doctors responsible for her death.
In fact, the husband would rewarded an amount of money for medical malpractice and case would be closed.... Well, the husband just could not swallow the death of his wife and could never ever imagine himself living off the cost of his wife's life. He decided to bite on his pain, mourn the death of his wife silently, and raise his daughter far away from the drama of unnecessary investigations that would not bring justice to his wife.
Because this man happened to be my father's half brother, I was very outraged when I heard the lawsuit was dropped, so I decided to call my parents hoping to encourage them to convince him to not give up on going after his wife's butchers...but then, I just realized that we have no law that protects patients against medical malpractice.
Furthermore, my mother gave a list of people's names we know that have died from medical mistake. One case made it to National TV and newspapers, but nothing happened to the medical team responsible for the death of that patient. What's even worse, she told me about two cases where the families never found out about the real cause of their sons' death thinking they just could not make it because of severe complications.
Also, I just recalled that my cousin was part of the medical team operating on my aunt, when she found out they left a medical device inside her aunt from a previous surgery she had, which caused her internal bleeding, which in turn caused her own aunt's death. Though her niece, who witnessed the irresponsible work of her colleagues, and son, a lawyer, could have gone with a medical law suit, they decided to drop the case and mourn her death quietly because of the same reason for-mentioned before: in Morocco, there are NO LAWS THAT PROTECT THE PATIENT FROM MALPRACTICE AND NO LAWS THAT PUNISH DOCTORS FROM COMMITTING MEDICAL MISTAKES AND CAUSING DEATH TO THEIR PATIENTS.
I find it very absurd and unethical to not have BASIC standards and regulations for medical malpractice in Morocco, and I wonder if Morocco will ever adopt a law to protect the patient from intended or unintended Medical Malpractice.
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