KUWAIT: In a step towards more government-lawmakers agreement, Al-Qabas daily reported that the parliamentary social and health affairs committee announced that the government prepares to submit a bill to the parliament soon, allowing wives and female relatives of patients to sign documents giving doctors permission to operate on their husbands and children in cases of emergency.

In this regard, committee Rapporteur MP Saadoun Hammad said that health ministry officials who attended the committee's meeting had no objections to the suggested amendments to the current law, which was recently amended to give the right to mothers for medical intervention on their children only. "They notified the committee about submitting a comprehensive project including those amendments," he said.

"The meeting was adjourned until the bill is submitted," Hammad added, noting that the bill involves setting a law for practicing medicine and assistant medical professions as well as regulating patients' rights and health facilities.

Further, Hammad explained that the bill stipulates that no medical procedure can be applied to patients except with their own consensus, and in case patients are incapable of doing so, the approval must be made by mothers, wives or any of the patient's adult male or female second degree relatives.