Fujairah, February 09: An Emirati teacher Shaikha lies unconscious in Rashid Hospital, unaware that last week, she was allegedly declared dead by Dibba Hospital.
The victim met with a road accident and sustained serious injuries. She was admitted to Dibba Hospital where her relatives alleged that she was declared dead. This claim, however, has been denied by the hospital’s management. Shaikha, 30, was heading to school for a training course when the accident took place on February 1. She fainted due to the impact.
Fatima, her sister, was quoted by an Arabic daily Emarat Al Youm, as saying Shaikha was taken to Dibba Hospital at 1.30pm where she was declared dead. One of the nurses, who was passing by heard sounds coming from under the sheet covering Shaikha’s face. “The doctors then realised she was not dead, but they were slow in assisting her. She spent around three hours with internal bleeding,” claimed the sister.
Fatima called on the Ministry of Health to investigate the case to avoid such matters from recurring.
Mohammad Hassan Ali, Shaikha’s brother, yesterday told News that on the day of the accident, he kept calling Shaikha, but she did not pick up her phone.
Negligent
“I called my other sister Fatima, who then told me that Shaikha had an accident and was taken to hospital,” he said.
Mohammad claimed “the hospital was negligent in dealing with his sister’s case”. “When I arrived at the hospital at around 5pm, I found her lying there and nobody from the medical staff was even around her, except for an oxygen pipe. The doctor told me that they were waiting for someone from the family to come and sign an approval for an urgent surgery to stop the bleeding,” Mohammad claimed.
He said in such extreme medical cases, doctors need to act immediately and save the person, even if the family is not around or late in showing up.
Abdullah Al Ka’abi, Director of Dibba Hospital, told Gulf News: “Nothing of this happened. We do not want to doubt what the family is claiming especially as everyone gets concerned about their loved ones if they were in similar conditions. However, it is not really accurate to say that the hospital declared the victim dead. It does not make sense that the doctors with years of experience and qualifications can not differentiate a dead person from a live one,”
He said maybe the people who rescued Shaikha — who had arrived at the hospital in an unconscious condition — assumed she was dead and spread the word.
“The reason why we did not get Shaikha to the operation room before her brother showed up was because we were trying to stabilise her vital signs and providing her body with blood units. If a person in the emergency ward requires surgery we do it immediately,” Al Ka’abi said.
He said the Ministry of Health will for sure investigate, but said if the family wants to officially complain to the ministry, they are ‘welcome to do so’.
“Shaikha is currently in the Intensive care Unit of Rashid Hospital after undergoing two surgeries for internal bleeding and broken bones. Her condition is stable, but she is still unconscious,” he said.
Shaikha is a mother of two children — a girl and a boy.
–Agencies