NEWS FROM THE UAE
SOURCE : THE NATIONAL

Toddler survives 30m balcony fall

A photograph of Saad Mohamad Shehzad on a wall of the family’s flat.

ABU DHABI - APR 21: A four-year-old boy who fell three storeys from an apartment window was left with only cuts and bruises after he made a soft landing – on a car bonnet.

Saad Mohamad Shehzad tumbled about 30 metres from the living room of his parents’ third-floor flat, which is behind the Madinat Zayed Shopping Centre. He landed on a Lexus.

The child was at home with his mother, Zakira Shehzad, 27, on Wednesday when the accident happened.

His mother had walked out of the room when he climbed on to a chair that was next to the window, said his grandfather, Abdul Aziz, yesterday.

“He did not realise the window was open,” said Mr Aziz, 57. “He put his hands out to try and lean on the glass but fell out of the window.

“One of the neighbours told us that he fell onto the bonnet of a car in the road outside and then he fell on the ground.

“He was unconscious for around five minutes but then he woke up and started crying.

“When I saw him he had blood on his face and in his mouth. It was frightening.

“We are just so relieved he is allright.”

Police and paramedics raced to the scene shortly before noon and examined the little boy, who had a bruise on his right leg, a small cut to his head, but was otherwise unhurt.

Saad was taken by ambulance to Sheikh Khalifa Hospital where he was admitted to the intensive care unit. He stayed at the hospital for 48 hours for observation.

Both his father, Mohamed Shehzad, a pharmacist, and Mr Aziz, an optician, were at work at the time of the accident.

At first Mrs Shehzad, who also has an eight-year-old daughter, Noora, did not realise what had happened and anxiously searched the flat looking for her son.

On the street outside, bystanders rushed to help the little boy and a neighbour who recognised the child alerted his family, who are originally from the southern Indian state of Kerala.

“I got a telephone call from my daughter telling me what happened,” said Mr Aziz.

“She was very upset. She tried to explain, but she was crying so much I couldn’t understand her.

“I went straight home and there was a large crowd in the street outside the building.

“There were people praying in the street. When Saad was unconscious, one man whispered a verse from the Quran over him and when he finished, Saad woke up.”

Mr Aziz said that when he first heard about his grandson’s fall he was numb with fear.

“I was just so afraid. It was like I couldn’t hear anyone talking around me. I didn’t know what to do.”

Neighbours said scores of people crowded around the boy while ambulance crews checked his condition. “Allah has given my grandson a second life,” said Mr Aziz. “At first I was worried but then I was sure that Allah would save him and not let him be hurt.”

Health officials shut down several facilities

Abu Dhabi - APR 21: Health officials have closed several health facilities and warned others after finding violations that included doctors sleeping in clinics and unqualified staff posing as nurses and anaesthetists.

Two doctors also had their medical licences suspended after the inspections by the Health Authority – Abu Dhabi (HAAD), both for illegally charging patients to issue sick notes.

One had issued more than 1,000 of the notes in the past five months, while another had handed out more than 600.

The authority also closed a pharmacy, a medical centre and an operating room in a major hospital.

Zaid al Siksek, the chief executive officer of HAAD, said it was stepping up its efforts to enforce health regulations.

Inspection teams have recently Inspection teams increased their working hours, and have been making more unannounced and scheduled visits to hospitals, health centres and pharmacies.

“HAAD resorts to closure of business only as a last measure when critical situations are identified such as threats to human life,” said Mr al Siksek, “or when multiple offences are repeated by a facility, offences that can be easily corrected with just a little internal discipline.”

The authority said an “operating room had been closed in a major hospital”, although it did not specify which one.

The inspectors recently found a number of men and women working without licences as nurses, radiology technicians, assistant dentists, anaesthetists and sterilisation technicians.

Mr Siksek said there was no justification for any health facility to employ someone who was not licensed to carry out medical, nursing or technical duties.

Dr Riad Abdelkarim, the acting chief medical officer at Tawam Hospital in Al Ain, said it was up to each facility to make sure they were not putting anyone at risk by employing unlicensed staff.

“If these people are not licensed we are putting our patients and loved ones at significant risk,” he said.

“The care of the patient is potentially compromised, and the quality of care is potentially compromised. You are also exposing yourself to legal issues.

“If you want to provide a service it is the responsibility of the administration of that facility to make sure that the staff are qualified and have gone through the correct procedure and primary source verification.”

The inspectors also found “the use of clinic space as residence for physicians working in the facility”, but again did not elaborate.

The teams seized expired medicines and contact lenses, which were later destroyed.

HAAD’s rules require that any medicine without an expiry date should be treated as expired, and that pharmacists should not dispense medicines that are within two months of their expiry date.

All expired or nearly-expired medicines must be clearly labelled as such and disposed of.

Dr Lamya El Barasi, chief pharmacist at Al Noor Hospital, said every trained and licensed pharmacist should know not to dispense expired medications.

“It does not always mean they can be harmful,” she said, “but they become less and less efficient which means the patient may be taking it for no reason, which is not a good idea.”

“Pharmacists working without licences is very dangerous. They should not be advising the public on anything to do with health.”

A number of businesses also received warnings for violating HAAD’s rules. They included a hotel that was operating a medical clinic without a licence, and employing an unlicensed nurse to work in it.

The team said it had found a private school employing female administrative staff as female nurses in its clinic.

Paul Coackley, principal of the British School — Al Khubairat, said school nurses were an integral part of the school system.

“We have school nurses and they are all registered and licensed with the health authority,” he said.

“We also have regular inspections. They are a very important part of our day to day work.”

HAAD said it would be following up with each of the facilities that had received warnings to ensure they had taken corrective action to comply with the regulations.

Stolen credit cards seized at airport

DUBAI - APR 21: Airport customs officers have seized thousands of computer chips, together with stolen credit cards and machines capable of cloning credit cards.

The seizures of 4,900 chips, 85 stolen credit cards and two cloning machines were made in 11 separate hauls during the first three months of this year. There were 77 similar cases during the first quarter of 2008.

Ali al Maqhawi, the director of airport operations for Dubai Customs, said a number of travellers had been arrested after being found in possession of credit cards in several different names.

Also between January and March this year, customs officers at various ports and border crossings seized Dh6.2 million (US$1.7m) worth of counterfeit goods, including mobile phones, car parts and cigarettes.

That compares with Dh34.6 million worth of fake goods seized in the corresponding period last year, a drop in value of 82 per cent.

However, the number of seizures actually rose from 47 in the first three months of 2008 to 64 this year, a 36 per cent increase that officials attributed to gangs smuggling greater volumes of lower-value fakes.

“The figures indicate that although there was an increase in the number of trademark infringement cases, their value was much less due to the type of goods and their low price,” said Yousef Ozair Mubarak, the senior manager of the intellectual property rights department at Dubai Customs.

“Customs has played a significant role in controlling entry of counterfeited and fake products in to markets, protecting society against the risk to public health and the local economy and safeguarding trademark owners’ rights.”

Scott Butler, the chief executive of the Arabian Anti-piracy Alliance, which represents Hollywood studios, European fashion labels and software firms in fighting counterfeiting in the region, said frontline customs officers were doing a good job in intercepting fake goods, but the information their seizures revealed was not being passed on to companies to help them deal with the problem globally.

“There are a lot of counterfeits flowing in and out of Dubai, but there is a lack of communication between the authorities and the private sector,” he said.

“They are not passing on the intelligence from these raids. If we know where a pirate DVD is being produced and where the destination is, that information is critical to helping stakeholders deal with the problem, and it is not being shared.

“In general, we know that the frontline officers are doing a great job; they are well-trained, eager and professional.

“We applaud the authorities for their seizures and think it’s great that there’s been an increase, but we’re disappointed with the lack of specific details; there needs to be much better communication.”

Pavement work bad for business

AL AIN - APR 21: Businesses say they are suffering losses as construction crews widen pavements as part of the “beautification” of downtown Al Ain.

Work to make walking easier downtown began last week when construction crews moved in their equipment, closed off parking areas, broke up the pavement and uprooted trees that have stood in the same spot for decades.

Trees are uprooted in the downtown area of Al Ain as work starts on widening pavements. Essam al Ghalib / The National
Although business owners welcome the scheme’s long-term benefits, they said yesterday the work had created a parking nightmare that has resulted in a drop of up to 80 per cent in customers.

And they complain they were given virtually no warning of what to expect.

“We were told that construction work would begin in 24 hours and that no one should park their cars in front of the store from the next day,” said Mohammed al Lail, 30, a sales clerk at Monaco Phones.

“Because there is no parking in front of my store, people go elsewhere. I have seen a 60 per cent drop in sales since construction began. The municipality should have given us a one-month notice.

“I would have bought less stock anticipating that business would go down. I now have mobile phones that I bought at a high price anticipating that they would be sold, but by the time construction ends and business returns to normal, the market price of the mobiles I have will have gone down.”

Abdullah al Ameri, the director of internal roads and infrastructure development at the department of municipal affairs, said the first phase of the project would take four and a half months to complete. He asked shopkeepers and other businesses to be patient and to bear in mind the long-term benefits.

“The six storefront parking areas that stretch along Khalifa bin Zayed Street between the Qasidah roundabout and the Planning roundabout will be torn up in order to widen the pavement for pedestrian traffic,” Mr al Ameri said.

“The pavement in front of the businesses there will be eight metres wide on each side of the street as opposed to the two metres it was originally. The trees that have been uprooted will be planted in another part of the city and new trees of a different kind and flowers will be planted there.

“The new pavement will be covered to shield pedestrians from the sun. The new parking areas will be able to accommodate the same number of vehicles as before, the only difference being that the handicapped parking spaces will be widened from three metres to five and a half metres.”

Ali Jaber, 48, the Lebanese owner of Al Safadi Lebanon Restaurant, had only two patrons in his restaurant at lunchtime yesterday.

“People don’t want to park on the street and walk through dust and sand to get to the restaurant,” Mr Jaber said. “Business is down by at least 50 per cent and car orders have practically stopped. I am surviving on telephone takeaway orders right now.”

He is worried the work may take longer than planned.

“Look outside, there are only five people working today,” he said. “The upgrade of Zayed bin Sultan Street was supposed to have taken only three months but it has been a year so far.”

Ziad Younis, 39, a Lebanese worker at Beirut Restaurant, said he had not had a single customer for two hours.

“We should be compensated for the loss to our business,” he said. “If construction does not finish on schedule, the restaurant will have to close. We cannot survive more than two months like this.”

At Karim Pharmacy, Mina Rezq, 28, an Egyptian pharmacist, said sales had dropped by 40 per cent in the past week, but is pleased that the handicapped parking spots in front of his store will be widened.

“This construction is good and bad,” he said. “On one hand it’s good that the area is being beautified and I look forward to the completion of the work, but at the same time we are losing business.”

Unicef joins ministry in fight against flab

UAE - APR 21: The Ministry of Health launched a three-month campaign yesterday to reduce childhood obesity.

The ministry and the United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef) have teamed up to run “The Fat Truth” campaign, which will include activities in schools and educational leaflets in malls and health clinics until July 20.

Parents, caregivers, policymakers and government bodies, as well as the health and education sectors, are being brought together for the campaign and involved in a problem-solving process.

Workshops with “stakeholders” will also be organised in co-operation with the Dubai Chamber and Dubai Press club and there will be an intensive media campaign.

“Our children are the foundation of the future and our society,” Princess Haya bint Al Hussein, a United Nation’s messenger of peace and wife of Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid, Vice President of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, said in a Unicef press release.

“Our commitment as parents, governments, and institutions should be to take the right decisions for their long-term good and so give our children the opportunity to enjoy better life, full of health and energy.”

The press conference at Raffles Hotel, Dubai, was held under the patronage of Princess Haya.

Humaid Mohammed Obaid al Qattami, the Minister of Health, said about 12 per cent of children were overweight, while 22 per cent were susceptible to obesity. He blamed lack of exercise and too many fatty and sugary foods.

Obesity could lead to health complications, including high blood pressure, diabetes, heart disease and cancer, he said.

The UAE ranks 10th in the world for its proportion of overweight people, according to the release. Most of the 10 most overweight nations were Pacific island, with Nauru topping the list.

In the Emirates, children as young as seven have been diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes, a condition usually associated with older people.

The campaign follows a recent survey involving 28,000 people by the Ministry of Health, which found that 68 per cent were either overweight or obese.

Eighteen per cent tested positive for diabetes and a further 12 per cent were borderline cases.

Health authorities across the UAE have already launched several campaigns to raise awareness about the issue, and Mr al Qattami said the ministry was working on programmes to secure health and safety for children and had initiated programmes to encourage schoolchildren to engage in sport and healthy eating practices.

The ministry has also drawn up a 10-year strategy against diabetes, including prevention measures as well as steps to improve health services for patients with the illness.