Dubai: In June, Gulf News published a story about an Indian couple who were facing mounting hospital bills after their twin girls were born prematurely at 26 weeks.
The Sharjah-based couple, who after 15 years of marriage managed to have children through In Vitro Fertilisation (IVF), were left in despair as they watched their newborns, each weighing in at 800 grams, fight for their lives in incubators at Latifa Hospital.
Mohammad Arif Farooqui, with a salary of Dh7,000, and his wife Nasreen Bano Nizamuddin, struggled to find a way to pay Dh5,900 per day to keep their twins in incubators for two more months.
When the story was published, Gulf News readers were quick to extend a helping hand, with one man donating Dh68,000 to help the family settle some of their bills. In total, Farooqui received Dh150,000 in donations.
Farooqui said he never had plans for his wife to deliver in the UAE, as she was on her residence visa renewal visit. However, what matters now, he said, is that his babies are healthy and growing.
Looking Back
“It was such a difficult time for both of us,” says Farooqui. “I never expected my daughters to survive because they were in a critical condition. It’s like a miracle that they have made it through the ordeal,” he says.
He and his wife had been waiting for years to have children and when she became pregnant, Farooqui was overjoyed. “I cannot imagine what would have happened to us had we lost our bundles of joy. I am so grateful to God for keeping our daughters in our lives,” he says.
Challenges
Recalling what he described as “the darkest days of his life”, Farooqui said he had never experienced as much stress as he did on the day his wife developed severe labour pains and had nowhere to go.
“I was rushing from government to public hospitals around Sharjah and Ajman and all of them said they could not take us in. My wife was experiencing excruciating pain even as I was trying to find a cab to take her from one hospital to another. That scene will remain in my memory forever, especially when we reached Latifa Hospital and she delivered one baby on the stretcher.”
This ordeal had barely ended when another began — the hospital bills, which kept mounting.
“I still owe the hospital Dh237,000 because my daughters had to stay under supervision for two months and 15 days. I feel extremely thankful for the financial help that people extended to us. Without it, I wouldn’t have been able to settle a part of the huge bill, which reached Dh410,000.”
Looking forward:
“I don’t know what 2016 holds for us. Only God knows. But I look forward to giving the best education for my daughters. I’m hoping that I would never again have to face such a situation in my life. The present amount is also difficult for me to clear — it’s beyond my capacity as I am supporting three homes — my parents [back home], my own and my sisters’.”
Yet Farooqui hopes that one day, God willing, he will be in a position where he can be of help to others in financial distress. “This is my aim for the future,” he says.
