Woman wins Dhs2 million in compensation for medical error that left her 'unable to speak'

Mohammed Yaseen, Staff Reporter

The Dubai Appellate Court upheld the ruling of the Court of First Instance, obliging a private hospital and a doctor working for it to pay Dhs2 millions in compensation to a patient, after the doctor committed a medical error.

In detail, a GCC woman filed a lawsuit in which she requested that a private hospital and a doctor be obliged to pay her Dhs4 millions in compensation for the permanent disability and the material and moral damages she incurred.

The appellant reported that she had a swelling in the neck, and the doctor asked her to perform the necessary tests and x-rays, which proved there was a benign tumor in the thyroid gland.

She added that she had a surgery to remove the tumor, clean the neck of fibers, and remove the salivary and lymph nodes, even though the results of the tests did not show malicious tumors which required the surgery.

She added that immediately after the operation, she had severe bleeding and blood accumulation in the neck, after which she was admitted to intensive care for two days.

After waking up, she felt heaviness, numbness, severe swelling of the tongue, and an inability to speak, eat, drink, and swallow, she added.

After checking with the doctor to find out the reason for this, he told her that was normal after the surgery and that everything would return to normal with time, but nothing had changed.

She then went to a doctor specialising in maxillofacial surgery in London, where she had an MRI and an ultrasound scan, and the results showed that she had complications resulting from the surgery, and that the interruption of the nerve conduction of the right half of the tongue is not repairable and treatable, which she had to live with it.

The patient filed a complaint against the doctor and the hospital, and the Medical Liability Committee revealed that the doctor committed a serious medical error and that there was negligence on the part of the appellees, who did not accept the ruling of the Court of First Instance, so they appealed it to the Appellate Court  that proved the appellees’ conviction and their responsibility for the medical error.

The court then obligated them to pay the appellant Dhs2 millions in compensation for all the damages she incurred.