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Doctors face murder charge for not reviving life support patient
Head of ICU allegedly told staff not to resuscitate quadriplegic if he had heart attack
By Eman Al Baik
Published Monday, July 18, 2011
Two doctors have been charged with premeditated murder after they allegedly refused to revive a patient who had a heart attack.
The Dubai Court of First Instance on Sunday heard the case against the defendants, a 50-year-old Austrian who headed the government hospital's intensive care unit, and another doctor, who both 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 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.
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.
