The Responsibility of Medical Institutions in Advising and Guiding Patients to Perform What Is Obligatory Upon Them in Terms of Acts of Worship

The questioner:
May Allah reward you with good, and may He do you good. Shaykh Salih, some hospitals do not care about matters of worship, nor about Islamic awareness, nor about enjoining good and forbidding evil, nor about alerting patients to what they must be upon regarding their Lord. Do you have a word to say? (May Allah preserve you). It is obligatory for the Ministry of Health to arrange preachers and guides within the ministry’s apparatus who tour the hospitals, just as is the case in other ministries. The Ministry of Defense, praise be to Allah, has a religious apparatus; the Ministry of Interior, and the other ministries, have religious apparatuses. The National Guard, for example, has a large religious apparatus. So likewise, it is obligatory for the Ministry of Health to have a religious apparatus with students of knowledge who can cover the needs of the Kingdom’s hospitals. This is an obligatory, necessary matter with no option in it; because it concerns the religion, the prayer which is the second pillar of the pillars of Islam. So one must hasten to arrange this great matter.
Second, I mention that a bulletin was issued by the Department of Ifta containing a detailed explanation of the patient’s ritual purity and his prayer. This bulletin must be printed. It is obligatory for the Ministry of Health to print it. It was sent officially to the Ministry of Health, so they must hasten to print it.

The Shaykh:
Clearly, and distribute it to patients in all hospitals, because it enlightens them about matters of their worship. Then it is also obligatory for the patients to ask the people of knowledge and to care about this matter. Visitors come to them, they have telephones, they can call the people of knowledge and the students of knowledge. It is obligatory that they care about this matter. Yes.

The presenter:
May Allah reward you with good, and may He do you good. Also, do you have a word for commercial hospitals? Shaykh

The questioner:
Salih?

The Shaykh:
This applies to both commercial and government hospitals to care about this matter from all aspects. Yes.

The presenter:
May Allah reward you with good. Do you have a call to design hospitals on the basis that they include a lecture hall, and a place to be a mosque for patients? Shaykh

The questioner:
Sa'd?

The Shaykh:
These are supplementary matters. If something of them is achieved, that is good. If it is not achieved, it is not necessary. What is necessary is guiding the patients while they are on their beds and in their wards, that good is conveyed to them, and that students of knowledge tour them and check on their religious conditions. This is an obligatory matter.

The presenter:
May Allah reward you with good. How is the awareness of women in hospitals conducted? (May Allah preserve you)

The questioner:
Allah.

The Shaykh:
Awareness of women in the hospital. Do you mean female patients or

The questioner:
Yes.

The Shaykh:
or the female workers.

The questioner:
And let it be on the night of my birthday.

The Shaykh:
For the female patients, just as it is for men. Preachers tour them in the presence of their mahrams or in the presence of the nurses, without seclusion. They deliver sermons to them while they are veiled and covered. Or there is a loudspeaker in the hospital and it is distributed to the rooms. And there is a time for the word, delivered by a student of knowledge, and its hearing reaches the other rooms. As for the nurses and the female employees of the hospital.

The presenter:
Yes, yes.

The Shaykh:
Awareness is also conducted for them via closed-circuit television. And if there are women who are graduates from colleges of Shari'ah or from the principles of religion, and they are many, praise be to Allah, let them perform this obligatory duty?

The presenter:
If Allah wills.