Dubai: A 29-year-old Indian worker has been repatriated to his hometown in Assam after lying in coma for nine months in Dubai’s Rashid Hospital. M.D. Noor Ahmad Chowdhury was hardly two months into his new job as a salesman when he slipped into coma after suffering stroke and bleeding in the brain at a Dubai shop where he worked in July last year.
He underwent two surgeries and remained on ventilator in the ICU of Rashid Hospital for several days. After undergoing tracheostomy in the ICU, he was weaned off from the ventilator and was given physiotherapy, hospital records showed.
Chowdhury’s enduring 15-hour journey back home by air and road became possible after Indian social worker Naseer Vatanappally took up the mission of contacting his family after seeing him during a hospital visit two months ago.
Naseer, who heads the welfare committee of Markaz Centre operating under the Awqaf [General Authority of Islamic Affairs and Endowments], told Gulf News that the hospital, the Indian Consulate in Dubai and Air India took special efforts in repatriating Chowdhury.
“There is no special treatment that he requires from here now. His family also wants him nearby. So, Rashid Hospital has allowed his discharge even though his bills piled up to around Dh245,000.”
Chowdhury’s employer, however, washed his hands of the repatriation of the newly joined employee, said Naseer.
He said the Indian Consulate requested Air India to assist in the repatriation of Chowdhury in a stretcher with a male nurse in accompaniment till New Delhi and paid for his travel expenses.
“Since there is no direct flight to Guwahati from Dubai, he had to be taken to Delhi first for catching a connection flight almost five hours later. The airline took the risk of allowing that and helped in keeping him at the airport clinic in Delhi during the transit period.”
He said Indian businessman Firoz Merchant, founder and chairman of Pure Gold Jewellers, and the Markaz Centre funded the rest of the flight from Delhi to Guwahati and further to Chowdhury’s hometown in Murzar Bazar in Nagaon, some 200km away from Guwahati, in an ambulance by road. The nurse’s accommodation and return trip were also facilitated by them.
By 3.30pm in India on Sunday, Chowdhury was admitted in a government hospital near his home. However, he could not realise that he was again near his family, for whom he came over to work in Dubai last year.
“His is a very poor family. His parents are labourers and he has one younger brother and two younger sisters. It is going to be difficult for them to meet the expenses for his future hospital stay.”
All that Chowdhury can do now is open and shut his eyes, said Naseer. “He is being tube fed. I have seen tears rolling down from his eyes. He cannot do anything else unless he wakes up from this coma.”
