Dubai: A 33 year-old Pakistani taxi driver has been in an unconscious state in a hospital in Dubai for over a month after suffering a sudden cardiac arrest in April.
With no family and only an uncle who holds a blue collar job in Dubai, Mohammad Ilyas, from Pakistan-administered Kashmir, is now facing accumulated hospital bills even as there’s no telling as to when he could revive from his comatose state.
Ilyas, whose father passed away some years ago, is the sole bread winner for his mother and four younger sibilings. He lived in Dubai for seven years before moving back to his home country last year and returning to Dubai as a driver for a private company eight months ago.
He was with a friend when he suffered a major heart attack that caused him brain damage and he lapsed into a coma.
Ilyas’s medical reports, which were presented to Gulf News by the Pakistan Association Dubai, showed that he had no past medical history and had never had chest pains or such other symptoms in the past. The report states: “The patient came into the ER [emergency room] after sudden collapse on exertion witnessed by a friend… he was admitted to medical ICU after crash call on emergency on arrival there.”
Doctors inserted tubes so Ilyas could be fed and also put him on ventilator support after they had done everything in their power to revive him.
Gulf News talked to Rizwan Fancy, from the Pakistan Association Dubai (PAD), who is working to make arrangements to get support to transfer Ilyas back to his home country, where his widowed mother resides. “We are trying to get him transferred to a hospital in Islamabad,” said Fancy, who added that it was Ilyas’s uncle who approached the PAD asking for help.
“Transfer costs to Pakistan will approximately cost Dh23,000. The patient will need to be transferred on a stretcher with a nurse and a dependent, as well as the necessary equipment like oxygen supply,” said Fancy. He confrimed that pending hospital bills in Dubai have also exceeded Dh70,000.
“The patient’s dad has passed away and his mother does not have enough money to travel to the UAE or to pay off his bills. Desperate help is needed in this case,” added Fancy. “We still don’t know how to support his family but trasnferring him to Pakistan for treatment is our priority,” he said and urged the community to come forward and help him.
