Hospital Tries to Pre-Empt Probe Into Conditions

Hospital Tries to Pre-Empt Probe Into Conditions: "Corrupt AIDS Cook-Up� by Rashid Al-Zahrani appeared in Okaz Arabic daily on Friday. A translation of the article follows:
�A journalist from an English-language newspaper ran like the wind from the lobby of a hospital in Jeddah which has a quarantined AIDS ward after he was arrested for taking pictures of a patient. When hospital staff and security witnessed this, they made every effort to get the film from the reporter and finally succeeded in doing so. Sources said that the reporter had approached the hospital administration seeking information about AIDS patients but that the administration had refused to talk to him. As he was leaving, he spoke to some members of staff after convincing them that he had �permission� to talk to them and to photograph patients. The staff soon learned that this was not true and that he was making up the story.�
What really happened at King Saud Hospital 10 days ago involved my colleague Roger Harrison, a female trainee and me. As part of an Arab News investigation into conditions there, we were paying an unscheduled visit to the hospital which has an AIDS ward. Arab News had learned that patients were locked in their rooms and were not being given life-prolonging anti-viral medication for as long as it took for them to be deported � sometimes as long as three years."