Medical report forged, lawyer tells Dubai court
Doctors pleaded not guilty and denied the charge of premeditated murder
Dubai: A lawyer stunned a court on Wednesday after claiming that there is forgery in the translated copy of a medical report about her client, a doctor, charged with premeditated murder for refusing to resuscitate a cardiac patient.
The doctor, a 50-year-old Austrian, Y.A., and a 49-year-old Indian doctor, M.O., pleaded not guilty and denied the charge of premeditated murder when they appeared before the Dubai Court of First Instance.
Y.A.'s lawyer handed out newly translated report to Presiding Judge Maher Salama Al Mahdi.
"We suspect that Dubai Health Authority's translated report contains forged, fabricated and untrue details. We want to submit to the court a copy of a legal translation of the report from English to Arabic. We would like to waive our request to the court to hear form an independent medical committee to look into the case," the lawyer told Presiding Judge Maher Salama Al Mahdi in courtroom seven.
According to the arraignment sheet, prosecutors accused Y.A. and M.O. of premeditated murder after they refused to revive the Indian patient who had a heart attack in a government hospital.
Prosecutors said Y.A., who headed the hospital's ICU, ordered the medical staff not to resuscitate the quadriplegic patient who was on life support in case he suffers a heart attack.
However, during Wednesday's hearing, the court heard three defence witnesses who unanimously testified that there were no written orders from doctors for the ICU team not to resuscitate the patient.
Prosecution records said M.O, who was the duty doctor when the man had a cardiac arrest, followed the ICU head's directives and let the patient die. Medical staff at the ICU testified before 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.
Lawyers will submit their defence argument when the court reconvenes on January 28.
