By Irfan Mohammed
Jeddah: The parents of premature quadruplets born at a leading hospital in Riyadh are appealing for help. The parents had paid for a normal delivery package but owing to the high bills around 4.5 crore Indian Rupees of a premature delivery, they are now unable to meet the unexpected expenses, which they were not even remotely imagined.
Four baby girls
The four baby girls weighing between 1.2kg – 13 kg were born to Telangana family of Syed Zahid Ali and Madiha Iram a week ago at Sulaiman Habib Hospital, a top leading hospital in Riyadh. The babies born 27 weeks of gestation, two months before Madiha due date.
Although in the incubators, the babies are stable and gaining weight at the Neo-Natal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) of the hospital, according to the father.
“There was no other option left except to join such prime and state of art technology hospital, since it was capable of handling of such complicated cases, hence I have rushed to that hospital in emergency and paid SR. 23,000 which saved for normal delivery package”, said Syed Zahid Ali.
The wife was discharged from the hospital on Sunday. Babies are required to keep in NICU for least another sixty days, according to husband.
Neo-Natal Intensive Care Unit
He added that everyday SR. 40,000 equivalent to 7.5 lakh Indian Rupees required to pay for hospital charges as babies need to keep in Neo-Natal Intensive Care Unit.
The family need of SR. 2.4 million equivalent to 4 crore 46 lakh 40,000 Indian Rupees to keep their newborn babies in incubators and its obviously beyond the imagination of an average Indian expatriate to bear such cost.
Zahid said while he was so happy to have become a father of four, he wasn’t prepared for this huge bill. “I had saved for a normal delivery, but now with the premature birth, I have no means to pay this huge amount.”
Zahid, who hailing from Malapalli in Nizamabad works in an engineering consulting office in Riyadh. His wife Madiha, who is on two-years visit visa. The family is approaching charitable organisations to get a financial reprieve.
There are some such cases occurring in Saudi Arabia where Neo-Natal Intensive Care Unit for premature born children ruins the lives of average Indian workers. The two-year visit visa for family, introduced recently by Kingdom, is become top hit as every day some hundreds of NRIs especially from Telangana brining their newly wedded wives to join them.
A baby’s body temperature drops as soon as it is outside the controlled environment of the mother’s womb. So just after labour, it’s important to regulate the temperature.
But premature babies have very little body fat, so they are unable to do that.
The babies need incubators to help keep them alive – equipment which only prime hospitals like this one can have but mostly average NRIs cannot afford.
The plight become social media hit in last few days in Saudi.