Comatose Filipina in Dubai returns home

  DUBAI - A 53-year-old Filipina lying comatose at a Dubai hospital for four months has been repatriated home, the Philippine Consulate General in Dubai told Expatmedia.net. Alicia De los Reyes Jurado, from Laguna, flew on a Philippine-bound Emirates flight on October 26. She is expected to have further treatment in Angono Medics Hospital in Rizal, Philippines. The 53-year-old Filipina was in Dubai to visit her son when she suffered a heart attack in June and was rushed to Aster Hospital in Mankhool. The lack of oxygen to her brain resulted in Jurado falling into a coma, said Dr Suhas Patil, neurologist at the hospital. Jurado stayed in the hospital's intensive care unit for four months. Jurado reportedly arrived in the UAE on visit visa and did not have medical insurance to cover her hospital expenses totalling more than Dh500,000. Consulate representatives, led by Philippine Consul General Paul Raymund Cortes, were able to speak with her son, Harold Harry in Dubai who sought assistance in settling the hospital bills and repatriating his mother. Through the Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs' Assistance to Nationals funding, the Philippine Consulate facilitated Jurado's medical repatriation using the services of Universal Medical Transfer Services. The consulate said it also made a partial payment of Dh20,000 towards Jurado's hospital expenses prior to her discharge from the hospital. Her son is reportedly planning to approach approach charitable institutions to help him settle the remaining hospital bill. Meanwhile, Aster Hospital CEO Dr Sherbaz Bichu said doctors and nurses at the hospital have treated Jurado like an "extended family member" and called her case a "survival story". “It gives me great pleasure and joy to know that Ms Alicia is now home in (the) Philippines, reunited with her family. After her four-month stay in our hospital battling for life, she escaped the mouth of death,” Bichu said. MYDS/Expat Media
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