Dubai: Two doctors appeared Sunday before the Dubai Court of First Instance to face charges of premeditated murder after they allegedly refused to revive a patient who had a heart attack.
The defendants, a 50-year-old Austrian who headed the government hospital's intensive care unit, and another doctor, denied the charges.
Prosecutors said the ICU head allegedly ordered the hospital's medical staff not to resuscitate the quadriplegic patient who was on life support in case he suffers a heart attack.
The other defendant, who was the doctor on duty when the man had a cardiac seizure, followed the ICU head's directive and allowed the patient to die.
Doctors and nurses at the ICU told prosecutors that they were against the ICU head's order since the patient was not brain dead. An ICU doctor testified that despite the defendant's verbal instructions not to perform CPR, he revived the patient after he suffered a heart attack the night before the incident.
The second defendant refused to revive the patient when he had a seizure the next day which led to his death, prosecutors said.
An ICU consultant who headed a medical committee that was tasked to look into case said their investigation validated claims that the ICU head had indeed issued instructions not to perform CPR on the patient in violation of existing medical rules.
More sedation
A nurse testified that the ICU head had ordered her to unplug the patient's oxygen monitor. Another nurse testified that the patient's condition was stable, but suffers from recurrent heart attacks.
The second defendant, meanwhile, testified that the ICU head sneaked into the patient's room the night before and unplugged some of the life support equipment and doubled the amount of morphine administered to sedate the victim.
The report issued by Dubai Health Authority on the case concluded that the ICU head's directives were inappropriate, administratively, clinically and morally.
