Back Home from 13-year Coma in Qatar, with No Improvement

Back Home from 13-year Coma in Qatar, with No Improvement

Bantwal: A resident of Nadaje in the taluk, who had met with a road mishap in the State of Qatar in 2004, could travel back to India only recently. However, the situation is still not a happy one for his family.

Muhammed Rafiq is the son of P Ibrahim Beary and third among a family of three brothers and a sisters.

A car driven by a Qatari national had rammed into the car driven by him in the capital city of Doha on that fateful day thirteen years ago.

Critically injured, Rafiq lay in a hospital there for 28 days. Although his life could be saved by the doctors, he had already slipped into coma.

Ever since he had been in the ICU of the hospital. There were certain legal impediments in shifting him to India. The Karnataka Cultural Foundation (KCF) is said to have taken all efforts in getting them sorted out and enable him to travel to India.

Recently he was repatriated and airflown via Kozhikode airport and brought by ambulance to Mangaluru. First he was admitted to the ICU of a private hospital and six days later shifted to another hospital in Deralakatte. With no improvement, he is still in a comatose state.

All the doctors who had examined him in Qatar were of the same opinion that with the kind of head injuries he had sustained he would not recover from coma.

Copies of the medical and other test reports were obtained from there by his brother Hameed and some top specialists in Bengaluru were consulted. But they too were of the same opinion.

Luckily for the family members, as long as he was being treated in Qatar, the entire healthcare expenses were taken care of by the government.

But the six-day ICU stay in the first hospital here cost them Rs 50,000 and even now thousands of rupees are being spent at the other hospital. He is sustained by food passed through pipes.

His aged parents keep praying for his recovery and are hopeful that some day or other their son will be back in normal state of health.

When Rafiq had left for employment in Qatar, he had just married two years earlier and had a daughter of a year and a half.

He had taken up the job of a house driver there. Today the daughter is grown up and is 14 years old.

Today, at 44 years, he may not even be aware that he is back with his family in India nor is he in a position to recognize his wife and his grown-up daughter.