Dubai A neurologist has been cleared of medical negligence in the case of a 13-year-old boy who suffered brain damage after he was injured playing football.
The British neurologist strongly denied the accusation of being responsible for the Emirati boy getting paralysed after suffering 100 per cent permanent disability in his brain’s neural area.
Prosecutors had charged the Briton of medical negligence.
According to records, the boy was playing football in December 2012 when the ball hit him in the head. When he returned home, he complained of a severe headache and his father rushed him to hospital.
According to the father’s testimony to prosecutors, the neurologist told him that his son had a blot clot in his head and required immediate surgery. “I refused the surgery… so doctors sucked out fluid that was building pressure in my son’s brain. I took my son to Germany for treatment where doctors claimed that my boy had lost 70 per cent of his brain cells,” the father alleged.
A special committee at the Dubai Health Authority looked into the case and decided that the neurologist should have performed the surgery.
When asked by the committee on why he did not do so, the doctor said it was the boy’s father who refused to let his son be operated on.
The committee’s report, however, said the neurologist misinformed the parents about their son’s medical condition.
The doctor entered a not guilty plea in court contending that the boy’s father’s was responsible for what happened to his son.
According to Thursday’s ruling, the doctor was acquitted based on the fact that his medical behaviour was not connected to what happened to the boy.
The primary ruling remains subject to appeal within 15 days.
