Nasty incident at Hamad Hospital!
Dear All,
I would like to share with you an incident that I have gone through in the recent past with the Hamad Hospital.
One of my good friend, had met with a critical accident in the dunes. His vehicle overturned and his spinal cord was broken. He had to be lifed from the dunes via a chopper as his situation was too critical. We realized that day was the there was no official ambulance chopper for the Hamad hospital and they had to get a military chopper ( an old and rusty one) to actual transport the passenger. The old chopper was actually a terrible one and had even the mounted weaponry on it! We are thankful that we got atleast that old rusty chopper to save his life.
Now the patient reached the hopsital was under critical state and it was confirmed that his spinal cord was damaged badly and would be most probably bed ridden for the rest of his life. Him being a German, the embassy officials intervened and his family was flown in. It was quite impressive to see the assistance the embassy was providing for its fellow citizens. I wish my embassy was as good as that! It was jointly decided that they fly him over to Germany to be treated by specialists over there. But they had to perform a surgery to stablize his condition as otherwise it would be too risky to fly him out even in an Air ambulance. On our search and further recommendations by the Doctors in Germany, we were referred to a particular doctor - in Hamad Hospital to operate on our friend as this was too critical an operation and a minor error could worsen the already critical condition of the patient. Apparently this guy is one of the best doctors in the region for such cases. I guess we are lucky to have him in Qatar. We went and spoke to this doctor - he was very courteous and instantly agreed to operate, but said that the Doctor handling the case should not object and should release the patient so that he can take over. Initially we did not think that this would be a big deal, we thought - why should there be a problem? But when we approached the doctor who was handling the case at that point - to our utter shock, he adamantly refused to allow us to use the other Doc to operate the patient. We requested the guy in every possible way, where in his wife who had flown in even pleaded with him to release the case to the other DOC. He refused to do it - stating that if the patient has to be operated, it would be ONLY HIM who does it. At one point during the discussion he threw the papers at his wife and walked out of the room. And in another discussion he verbally harrased the lady and walked out of the room and banged the door on her face! Any normal person can imagine the trauma that the lady must have been going through seeing her husband in that situation, and on top of that all these harassements!! And that too coming from a Doctor!!!!Finally we had to speak to the head of a particular department in Hamad hospital, he was quite an influential guy and was a member of the royal family. He intervened and we had to get another very influential Qatari to personally speak to this particular doctor to resolve the situation! We finally resolved it - got the specialist to operate and we flew him out of DOha to Germany via Air Ambulance. He is at present undergoing treatment in Germany.
My simple questions are
1. How come a nation like Qatar which has surplus reserves not have even a simple chopper that is properly equipped to transport patients in emergency situations?
2. How come Doctors in senior levels can be so in humane and CRUEL to harrass a lady like this and play with the life of a patient just to satisfy his damn ego!?
3. Why is that we have to use our personal contacts and influence to get simply our very basic rights here?! What if we did not have these contacts - we would have to take the risk with that pathetic moron!!??
I dont expect to have answers to these questions from the forum - but I just wanted to vent out my frustration and disappointment. I dont intend to leave this incident and forget it- I want to take it up and fight the issue and ensure that Doctors like this are taught a lesson! I dont blame the entire Hamad Hospital - I do relaize that there are many good staff in there.. but the bad apples like the one I mentioned need to be rooted out. Just to share a good experience also in this episode.. after the operation, when we were with the patient one evening, we asked him what would he like us to get for the dinner next day and our friend said he missed Houmous with meat. We agreed to get him that dish. One of the male nurses over heard it and he voluntarily without even telling us - went ahead, got his wife to cook that dish and brought it along the next day and served the patient. It was just too good a gesture from that staff. So yes - there are definetly good people working there.. but the bad ones are too terrible that over shadows every thing else!
I would appreciate it if you could give suggestions on how to take up this cause and take it to the right levels so that such incidents dont happen to others and this particular doctor is taught a lesson.
ARMY
They dumbly stick to the rules...
eg:
They dont even know when a lady's attempt at normal delivery is beyond the limit. They never give the option of Ceserian.
There have been women whos body have been plagued with internal & external complication because of the Doc's dumb attitude of forcing a normal delivery.....when the time is way beyond the threshold.
You can have a ceserian op only if the gynecologist has writen on your file for a "ceserian due to some reasons".
Get me something dumber than that. (other than the army001's tale).
Thanks for the wishes. Yes we are all relieved that he is in Germany. Actually after the incident - we wanted to react then itself. But thought against it as we did not want to put him in any more risk. Hence we had to wait till he was flown out and he was safe and sound in Germany and he was actually starting to feel better and then work on the issue with the HMC.
At times - the scene here can get quite scary. As I mentioned before, one of my buddy's father recently passed away due to wrong diagnosis during the initial stages of a sickness and by the time they identified the real problem it was too late. When I went for the funeral - I just did not what to even say to my friend to console him!!!
I think its always adivicable here to take a second opinon on all cases - just to be sure.
ARMY
" Life is not a party we hoped for, but while we are here, we might as well dance! "
Well - wont argue with you on it. It is indeed a dangerous sport. I guess most of the time accidents happen due to guys wanting to show off and try stunts. In my friends case - none of this was the case. They actually went over there for an official business on a project they were working on. I know sounds strange - but they went there to collect some samples of the sand and photos for some project they were working on.
But - dune bashing for me - is a very effective stress releiever. I dont do any of these stunts.. but drive deep in- thats it! But thanks for the concern and info!
ARMY.
" Life is not a party we hoped for, but while we are here, we might as well dance! "
Army, ur not sounding cruel at all. This doctor should suffer the consequences of his actions. I mean he was risking the life of a human being! If u didn't have influential contacts, and the patient died, then I would consider that doctor a murder, and murders should be prosecuted. Ur friend was lucky enough to have contacts, what about the other poor lives that are under his hand? I wonder how many people have died or were endangered just to satisfy his sick ego.
I don't even ski, let alone career over sandhills in a 4x4 with someone else driving!
Mind you despite having the odd car roll when I've been the driver, I haven't broken any limbs yet (fingers crossed). I have a habit of falling over a lot so seem to have developed the knack for bouncing.
:D
dune bugging is a dangerous sport.35 percent of major accidents i see come from it. the danger presumably is not in the sport itself but in a lot of cases lack of experience on part of the rider.occasionally freak accidents like the one that happened to army s friend do occur.but i would strongly discourage "weekend warriors" from being too adventurous.be careful do it right - the first time!
Coolquietman - As I mentioned in my post - I strongly believe that my comments are not applicable for the entire HMC staff and I have even mentioned a small but a very touching pleasant experience from one of the staff we had during all this mess. But the sad part is that the bad ones overshadow the good ones! But we dont intend to brand every one with the same stick! I agree with you that there are lot of good changes happening in there and it is for the very same reason why I want to take this matter up. So sorry - if my message sounded like that it was for all the HMC staff.
ARMY.
" Life is not a party we hoped for, but while we are here, we might as well dance! "
Agree with you Cornellian. Hope that the right authorities here understand the gravity of the matter and do some thing on those lines.
On your comment - ..."what goes around, comes around" - well - this time I would like to make a conscious effort to ensure that he gets it fast! I dont want to sound cruel - but I want to make sure that no one else has to go through this in future and an example be made out of this for the rest of the Docs there.
ARMY.
" Life is not a party we hoped for, but while we are here, we might as well dance! "
as a doctor in hmc i think your statement is really inappropriate.darude .in fact its downright wrong when you apply it to the whole population of doctors. sure there may be bad apples in the barrel but there are lots of us doing really good stuff and very hard work too.its very easy to make generalisations. think b4 shooting off ur mouth again ok chum!
dear army i am sorry for your friend .as a surgeon working here(though not in neurosurgery), i think i know both docs you are talking about.in fact i was surprised to hear that ur doc refused to transfer the patient to the others care.pm may be right in saying that egoism is rampant in that particular department.but this refusal is illegal and against hmc policy.i know for sure cos many times patients come over to our team from other teams and even come over by switching clinics.no one objects to that (at least in my dept.). this is the first time i ve heard of a patient being refused transfer.
you are perfectly justified in giving a complaint and i would support you all the way.the rude behaviour of the doc also cannot and should not be tolerated.i ve been here only a short while but even in that time the changes in the hosp. have been really remarkable.
as for choppers this is something out of my purview so i cant comment on that but i do believe work on helipad is almost finished.
if you need further advice on this issue please dont hesitate to pm me.
do it right - the first time!
I don't think it makes any difference what size the dune is and apart from that many accidents happen there.
Like Jauntie I have lived quite a few years and hope to annoy the world a little while longer and as I am accident prone (fell of my bicycle while try to get on) broke my foot and had to have a plate put in.
Driving my car every day is the hight of my excitement as that is dangerous enough lol.
Ok - get that part! No I would not have written to them in the manner that I have posted it here. I was just expressing myself here. The letter would be coming from my friends wife. I shall keep you posted on how it goes.
When we meet next time - i shall check with you for the contact details of these people whom you mentioned.
Thanks CanaryBird
ARMY
" Life is not a party we hoped for, but while we are here, we might as well dance! "
Ok it means that the letter should be polite explaining the important details but please don't put in words such as pathetic moron or bad apple.
The letter would have to come from the patient himself (as he probably can't write yet)or from a close relative.
It may then later be referred to Quality Management where there is a committee who discuss serios events.
Ok.
Hey Jauntie - I am also a big fan of dunes. It took me a little while after the incident to back to the dunes. I did visit the dunes after the incident. Cant give it up completely. But yes the event did shake me up a little. But - when bad things are to happen - it will happen - no matter where we are! Its all in the hands of God..but we just need to take the precautions - thats all what we can do. Note that my friend was an expert on dune driving and he has been going to the dunes for years.. regularly and he fell of a very small dune!!!!!! It was just fate. None of us could believe that an expert driver like him could fall of a small dune like that!
ARMY.
" Life is not a party we hoped for, but while we are here, we might as well dance! "
It really saddens me to hear that a DOCTOR from all people was so selfish to the extent of risking a patient's life, I think he should be stripped away from his liscence because he clearly violated the hypocratic oath.
Hope ur friend recovers soon, and hope that doctor gets what he deserves. U know what they say..."what goes around, comes around"
Thanks a lot Canary for the info. Could you clarify what you meant by choosing my words carefully.
Since you know the people whom you have recomended better than me, would they be genuinely interested in looking into problems of this nature and fixing it? I dont want to sound negative, but not every one is passionate and interested in making the place better - hence just clarifying. Dont get me wrong.
Also can you pm me their contact details.
ARMY
" Life is not a party we hoped for, but while we are here, we might as well dance! "
PM,
Thanks for the info. Can you send me private message with Dr. Latifa's contact details? I shall definetly take it up with her.
ARMY
" Life is not a party we hoped for, but while we are here, we might as well dance! "
has put me off Dune Buggying for LIFE !
There are emergency Helicopters planned as far as my information goes, however, they will be going to the police. I am not sure if they will have a paramedics team for this but I would imagine they will.
Hamad Hospital is improving and also attitudes are changing you can take the situation up with customer relations (Ms. Tuula Peltola) in Hamad and/or send a mail to Dr. Hanan Al Kuwari as she is now the Managing Director of the hospital.
However, I would like suggest to you when you write that you choose your wording carefully.
Sorry about your friends accident and hope that he will recover fully
I personally have experienced Doctors in these clinics when you go there - they dont even check you and before you even complete stating your problem - they are out with the prescription pad trying one of the new medicines on us! I have long ago stopped going to these clinics. But for emergencies we dont have another option!
ARMY
" Life is not a party we hoped for, but while we are here, we might as well dance! "
Yes PM, he is doing better. One of his hands has got most of the motions back in place, second hand only primary motions. Legs not much progress.
There two people in his vehicle and the second guy is part of VCUQ. His neck was broken. I guess you must be knowing these guys as they were very nice guys and quite popluar in their circles.
On the HMC - PM - I do agree that work is in progress. But guys like this need to be brought to justice. I just find it too strong to just leave it like that. Nothing much might come out of it - but I wont feel at peace unless I atleast try for it. I intend to lodge a complaint - but need to know - to who it should go to. I need to find some one up there who has a heart and is committed to improve things there!
If we let this go now - what if tommorow its some one near and dear to you or me who has to go through this again and what if we dont get lucky to pull the strings to get what we want! I am sure we would regret then. I do realize that just by me raising it up - things are not going to change over night. But I think its worth the trouble.
A few months ago - a good friend's father passed away in Doha. The reason was due to a wrong analysis by the first Doctor at one of the clinics and he gave the wrong prescription. THe actual disease went unnoticed and by the time he was admitted in the Emergency and the docs at Hamad found the the real problem - it was too late and he passed away after 2 days.
ARMY.
" Life is not a party we hoped for, but while we are here, we might as well dance! "
For every Doc a patient is just an experiment and he tries everything on him and in last either he fails it or get success to get more credit.
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