Dubai: A woman in her eighth month of pregnancy was among 11 others who were promptly transferred to hospital from the area around Burj Khalifa on New Year’s Eve as revellers partied hard into the night, a top official has said.
Khalifa Bin Darrai, executive director of Dubai Corporation for Ambulance Services, told XPRESS, “The woman complained of exhaustion and was immediately transferred to a public hospital by our paramedics. Another woman, also in her eighth month of pregnancy, was shifted to a private hospital from the Dubai Festival City area.”
He said 100 of the 838 paramedics on duty that night in Dubai were around Burj Khalifa itself.
Bus hospitals
“We deployed 23 ambulances and had 23 first aid points in this area in addition to 18 ambulances inside Dubai Mall. We also designated two big bus hospitals, seven responders, two motorbikes and two bikes here. We even had a special ambulance for people of determination. As many as 84 patients were attended to on site, 18 treated at the field hospital and 11 transferred to a government or private hospital.”
He said the second highest number of cases attended to by DCAS was 33 at Global Village with one patient being transferred to a government hospital.
Excluding Burj Khalifa and Global Village, he said DCAS catered to 633 patients across Dubai, after receiving Emergency calls on 999.
He said the majority of the complaints were minor and ranged from headache and exhaustion to small injuries, nausea and abdominal pain.
He said DCAS paramedics were at hand at 45 different events in the city. “In all, we had 15 medical dispatch units and a 190-strong fleet all over Dubai, which included bikes, motor bikes, responders and ambulances. The total number of paramedics on duty was 838.”
Bin Darrai said 13 people were treated at various locations on Palm Jumeirah and three around the Burj Al Arab and Madinat Jumeirah area.
