No money, no care, family told
Unemployed father and ill daughter turned away from hospital emergency unit
By Bassma Al Jandaly, Senior ReporterPublished: 00:00 April 23, 2010Reader comments (18)
Baby Farah Nabeel lies in her hospital bed. Her father Hajri Nabeel said doctors refused treatment until he paid a Dh1,000 deposit though they have a government health card. Image Credit: OLIVER CLARKE/Gulf News
Dubai: A government hospital turned away a 20-month-old baby girl taken there for emergency treatment, because her unemployed father did not have Dh1,000 to pay as a deposit.
Farah was taken to the Dubai Hospital by her father Nabeel on Wednesday night. She had been ill for the past month and was taken to Dubai Hospital on several occasions. On Wednesday, her condition worsened and she needed emergency care at around 10pm.
Temperature
Nabeel said her temperature shot up and she lost consciousness. "My wife and I rushed her to Dubai Hospital and the doctor at the emergency ward said she needed to be admitted immediately to the hospital," the father said.
Nabeel said the doctor asked him to go to the cashier to pay the fees and make arrangements for the admission. "I went to the reception and to the cashier who refused to admit my baby till I paid Dh1,000 which I did not have," he said.
The father told the cashier he would bring the money early in the morning, but the cashier refused.
Adamant cashier
Nabeel said the doctor tried to convince the cashier to let the baby be admitted and the payment could be taken afterwards, but the cashier refused.
"The cashier told the doctor to sign an undertaking that the baby would be admitted on her responsibility, but the doctor said no," he said.
"The doctor asked the cashier to take any ID from me but he refused and said that there are instructions from the administration that a Dh1,000 deposit has to be paid. No ID would be accepted instead of the deposit whatever the reason," Nabeel said.
The father said the doctor asked the nurse at the emergency ward to keep the baby. However, the nurse said there was no space at the ward.
Nabeel tried to negotiate with the cashier from 10pm to 3.30am till he agreed to take his driving licence while he arranged for the money.
The father said his daughter was very sick and was kept in the isolation ward. "My daughter was admitted to the isolation ward as doctors suspected she had an infectious disease,'' he said.
"My baby has a health card issued from the same hospital but it can be used only when she is discharged. I could get a 50 per cent discount on the bill because of the card."
Nabeel, who lost his job recently after his company closed, said he borrowed money from a friend to pay the deposit.
Expats must pay first
Hospital officials said that if an expatriate patient has a health card issued by the hospital itself and does not need to be admitted then he has to pay a Dh60 fee for a visit. Additional fees are charged if medicines are needed.
"If an expatriate patient needs to be admitted a deposit Dh 1,000 must be paid before admitting the patient, an official said. He stressed that there are instructions from the hospital administration not to accept ID from patients. They have to pay the deposit.
"If they have a health card issued from here, we will charge them only 50 per cent of the total bill. If they have no health card they have to pay the full amount," he said.
The official said that if the hospital bill is less than Dh 1,000 the rest of the money will be refunded.
The official said Farah was admitted and her father asked for a bed in the room for her mother and they will be charged extra for that.
Health card fees at Dubai Hospital
For Emiratis the health card is valid for four years and cost children up to the age of nine Dh25. The cost from age 10-17 years is Dh50 and from age 18 years and above is Dh100. For other nationalities the health card is valid only for a year and costs Dh100 for children up to nine years. The cost from age 10-17 years is Dh200 and over 17 years is Dh300
http://gulfnews.com/news/gulf/uae/health/no-money-no-care-family-told-1....
I would like to remind everyone to think by BRAIN not heart.
1)- If the father is unemployed so how come he is still living in UAE (which residence visa)? AND how he is able to pay for RENT, FOOD, CLOTHES...etc but cannot pay AED1000 for his beloved daughter (as he claims).
2)- I know Dubai Hospital does not charge EMERGENCY cases. But if the family insisted to admit the baby then they have to pay for it. AND instead of waiting from 10pm to 3:30am, why the father did not go to other hospital although his daughter condition was deteriorating (as he claims)?
3)- In UAE, there is private health insurance system. So if this father chose to take the risk by not enrolling to private health insurance company and put the health of his BELOVED family under big risk and danger, why he is blaming the hospital.
humanity should be the key requirement while recruiting hospital assistants, doctors
This Is Called Hospital's Mafia.... This Is Totally Rubbish, These Hospitals Are Here For Our Safety And Not For Getting Money From All Of Us.......
it's always good to stretch it now and then!
Back to the topic, really surprising news. Maybe effect of worsening financial problem of Dubai government?
Similar pblm faced by one of our closed frd and atlast they rushed to INDIA for the treatment..
from my own experiences at HMC I find them to be generally very incompetent and the probability of you being placed with a decent doctor is very low. I don't want to go into details but I had seen several doctors there, each with a different diagnoses, none could identify my problem and told very contradicting reports on the severity of my injury, I wasted so much time there for nothing. As soon as I went to the UK, the first hospital identified the problem and put me in a rehabilitation program, they told me my injury was nothing to be worried about but because I had spent so long without follow a program it would take much longer to heal.
Thanks HMC for wasting my time, I easily met with over 8 doctors during that period in Qatar. Don't get me started on the hour waits after your appointed time at the hospitals too..
drmana,reading ur comments-i really wished if i would have delievered in DUBAI hospital rather than in DOHA so that i could have saved a large potion of money which i had spent at DOHA HOSPITAL..lol
sad report :/
rezy, you surely have not been to Dubai Hospital then :-)
That's right WK, same was the policy of government hospital I worked in. No charge for emergency cases for admission of up to 3 days. That's why I am surprised by this news. After 3 days, they charged 200AED for each day.
Healthcare in Doha has a long way to go to reach the standard of Dubai. Even the PHC there are so much better than what we have here.
Doctor mareez se: meine tumhain yaddasht teiz karnay ki jo golian di hain tumhain un se kuch asar huwa?
Kon si golain doctor sahab? ...:D
as far as i know, normal deliveries are for free in dubai government hospitals...they only charge for the medicines and the room at very nominal rates.
May God help the poor child! Ameen!
WK, you could have stayed for some more days there..:)
Ooh really?
Doha is great! It has some facilities in the Govt. hospitals even for free.
Yes it's a government hospital. I was admit there for 5 days, they didn't charge me a penny saying they don't charge for emergency cases. Cute nurses as well :P
Ghazal, this is government hospital,
Another good hospital in Dubai is Iranian Hospital, I know they also offer discount if people request
ghazalz, Dubai hospital is a government hospital and a very good one.
Anyhow I wonder why don't they go to the government hospitals? those are also having a world class standard with nominal charges.
seems they doing business with health cards... as listed above... i woud be the MD... i shoot them all in a line... :O
Kattak, could you elobrate?
overall seems like lately the costs are going all crazy, I too love Dubai but disappointed to see such incidents
When I delivered in Dubai in 2008, total maternity package was 2500AED for which I got excellent professional care from 3rd month till delivery including all investigations, sonography and delivery...true value for money. Also, while I was working in one of the government hospitals there, never encountered any such cases where a patient was refused care for lack of money......this is very surprising for me.
I was treated free of cost in Dubai hospital in case of an emergency once. Do they have different standards for different people?
irf77...The comparison between the two would be logical if done by the year 2015 or 2020.
sickening. its a sad day when money overrides humanity.
yesterday i read, that maternity packages costs have doubled, from 4 K something to 9.5K, this si plain stupid as surely hospital costs such as payroll, employee salaries and other charges did no shoot up over night.
on the other side, kudos to Qatari government to keeping responsible health care
"Miskeen Kharjees" never had their rights. I am not surprised at all.
where the humanity has gone??