• Home
• /
• Crime

Doctor acquitted of causing girl’s death

The South African doctor, Cyril Karabus, who was convicted of causing the death of a three-year-old girl with leukemia, who died at an Abu Dhabi Hospital in 2002, was cleared by the Abu Dhabi Court of Appeal on Wednesday.

Dr Karabus was accused of causing the child’s death, by ceasing the treatment and the life support machine from the deceased, but the court found that it was not his fault, but the surgeon’s who performed the operation.

The court had adjourned the pronouncement of the verdict to April 29, but the defence lawyer requested the court to speed up issuing the decision due to the health condition of his client.

The case dated back to October 15, 2002. The young girl’s health condition deteriorated, when she developed a brain haemorrhage after a blood plates transfusion was not carried on her in time.

She was urgently admitted to the X-ray scanning room, after which, specialists had decided she should undergo urgent surgery to stop the bleeding in the brain, which the specialists performed.

The accused doctor told the father of the girl that she might not live, but if she did, she would have a permanent disability as a part of her brain was damaged due to the bleeding.

The girl was placed in the Intensive Care Unit, where her condition continued to deteriorate, until she breathed her last on October 19.

The Public Prosecution had charged the doctor of causing the girl’s death, as a result of halting the medication and taking her off the life support machine.

Her condition was noted as brain death, but the international medical standards for the brain death did not comply with her condition.

malzarooni@khaleejtimes.com