Dubai: A nurse injected a painkiller into Bilal Ahmad's arm as he sat in one of the emergency rooms at the Rashid Hospital Trauma Centre with his forehead tightly bandaged.
His hair jutted out from the top of the bandage in spikes, his shirt was speckled with dried blood that looked like rust stains and he seemed disoriented.
"The police brought him in. He had a huge laceration on his head," the nurse said.
Like many of us, Ahmad was speaking on his mobile phone while on the road, but he was not driving a car, he was riding a bicycle. Caught up in his conversation, he rode right into an iron rod jutting out from a trailer truck. He said it felt like an explosion in his head.
The Trauma Centre, the largest speciality centre in the region, now receives about 400 patients every day, most of them injured in traffic accidents. The number is lower than last year because there is less traffic on the roads. But road crashes remain one of the top killers in the UAE after heart disease.
Huge load
Rashid Hospital director Dr Younus Kazim said in the past six months, a little over 57,000 patients were treated at the centre and doctors performed about 4,000 operations. Considering that Dubai has a population of about 1.7 million, this was a huge load for one hospital to handle.
"We cannot refuse any case," Kazim said. It would be unethical to reject anyone, despite the staff having their hands full, he said. "If we cannot handle a serious case, we stabilise the patient and refer him to other specialists," he said.
The doctor said the number of heart patients was increasing because people were careless with their health and did not follow their doctor's advice.
"People say it is too hot to walk, but you can walk in the malls," he said. He said the number of diabetics was also increasing because people were less active.
The centre has a large ICU (intensive care unit) and the staff is kept busy every day as patients suffering from coronary problems are wheeled in.
"There was only one day when we had no patients at all," the doctor said. That day was November 8, 2008, and Kazim said he had kept and framed the duty officer's chart for that day.
Kazim said the trauma cases brought to Rashid Hospital Trauma Centre needed anything from brain surgery, to treatment for broken legs and fractures, or for disease of the urinary system. Every day the hospital also received about five serious cases referred from other private and government hospitals, he said.
The Rashid Hospital, near Al Maktoum Bridge, is one of Dubai's oldest hospitals and has nearly 550 beds. But there was an urgent need for more, Kazim said.
Every summer the Trauma Centre also received heat exhaustion cases, he said. With temperatures hovering in the high 40s and the high humidity level, people were brought to the Rashid Hospital Trauma Centre feeling dizzy after working in the sun, with corresponding pain in their muscles and abdomen.
Dr Victor Mikhaeel Butros, specialist senior registrar at the centre, pointed to a log book and said the number of patients being treated for heat exhaustion and stroke had dropped in recent years. This was because the UAE had ruled that construction workers must take a break at midday.
"People are usually brought in confused, semi-conscious," he said about heat exhaustion patients.
Gulf News was given a tour of what the hospital calls its disaster room. It is a medium-sized room containing eight fold-out chairs attached to the walls.
Dr Abdullah Ahmad Al Naqbi, principal administrative officer, said the room was very busy in emergencies such as during last year's cargo plane crash.
At such a time, the hospital's chief executive officer would occupy one of the room's chairs, surrounded by his staff, and every 30 minutes the team was given an update on the situation.
