Concern for doctor detained in Dubai
SOUTH African expats in Australia have added their voices to an international chorus of concern over the welfare of renowned Cape Town doctor Professor Cyril Karabus, who has been jailed in the United Arab Emirates.
The 78-year-old oncologist was arrested at Dubai International Airport on August 18 this year after being tried and convicted in absentia on charges of manslaughter and falsifying medical documents.
The case relates to the death of a three-year-old leukaemia patient who was treated by Karabus 10 years ago, while he was working as a locum for five weeks at the Sheikh Khalifa Medical Centre in Abu Dhabi.
When his contract expired, he left the country unaware of any legal proceedings against him. The first that the former professor of paediatrics at the University of Cape Town knew of the charges and conviction was a decade later – when he was arrested while in transit at the airport eight weeks ago.
He was flying back to South Africa from Canada, where he had attended his son’s wedding.
According to Karabus’s lawyer, Michael Bagraim, not only was the child in question terminally ill and going to die regardless of treatment – a claim supported by other medical practitioners – but the documents his client is accused of falsifying can’t be found.
Having been refused bail, Karabus, who Bagraim describes as “old, frail and very sickly”, remains detained in Abu Dhabi while awaiting a retrial.
Sydney paediatrician Mark Selikowitz, who trained under Karabus, said he remembered him as “a very devoted doctor who worked at the Red Cross War Memorial Children’s Hospital in Cape Town, where he set up the haematology [and] oncology unit”.
“I cannot think of a more dedicated and more committed professional,” he said. “He was absolutely devoted to his patients and their parents.”
Selikowitz said it was sad to hear stories of Karabus arriving at court hearings in a jumpsuit and shackles. “It seems a terrible way to be treating a person of his stature and reputation in what are his mature years.”
St Ives GP Dr Abirah Lipschitz knew Karabus as a medical student in South Africa. “The whole thing is unbelievable. As a doctor myself, it’s just really scary that you can be pulled up for doing something that sort of happened anyway.”
Lower North Shore resident Vernon Katz went to the same boarding school as Karabus. “We all feel sorry that this has happened, and it’s also a warning for anybody going to any of those Middle Eastern countries – they may seem civilised but perhaps there’s something still missing.”
An online petition calling for Karabus’s release has already amassed almost 11,000 signatures.
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