Due to the current civil war in the country, the little Qade could not obtain medical care in Yemen.
“The return trip went smoothly from a medical perspective and the air ambulance landed at Lanseria International Airport just after 5am on 12 February. The baby was transported directly to the hospital for heart surgery he so urgently needed,” Netcare 911 chief operating officer, Craig Grindell said.
To get Qade to the doctors who could treat him, a team of South African medical aviation evacuation specialists had to find a way to safely evacuate him and his mother from Yemen on the southern edge of the Arabian Peninsula.
“When we were approached by Alliance International Medical Services (Aims) to take on this medical evacuation, we were told that our counterparts in other countries, including the United Arab Emirates and European nations, were unwilling to undertake this highly complex mission. Despite the difficult and dangerous situation, Netcare 911 and its medical aviation partner Medair, felt compelled to help as it was made clear to us that we were Qade’s last hope,” Bruce Johnstone, chief executive officer of Medair said.
Qade was born on 4 January. He was only 28 days old when Netcare 911 and Medair were alerted to his predicament. “As the patient was so young and had such compromised health, it was necessary for him to be monitored closely throughout the flight from Yemen to Johannesburg. While the emergency service was well placed to undertake mercy flights of this nature, given its highly qualified emergency medical evacuation team, this was clearly a mission with a difference that required meticulous planning and logistical support at every level,” Grindell elaborated.
“Transporting such a young and critically-ill patient is an intricate process in itself, but this case was further complicated by the fact that permission had to be sought from the Saudi Arabian authorities to cross Saudi airspace, and we then had to wait for them to give us safe time slots for the flights,” Johnstone said.
Unfortunately, the aircraft could only accommodate one of the baby’s parents, his mother Ameera Hussian Aljadbi. Due to the closure of the Saudi Arabian border, his father has not been able to join the family in South Africa.
Qade, who suffered from a life-threatening congenital coarctation of the aorta, which is the narrowing of the large blood vessel branching from the heart, underwent an emergency procedure on the afternoon of his arrival in the country. The procedure, performed by cardio-thoracic surgeons, Doctor Hendrik Mamorare and Doctor Izak de Villiers Jonker, and paediatric cardiologist, Doctor Raymond Dansky, was a success. Qade recovered well in the paediatric cardio-thoracic unit at Netcare Sunninghill Hospital under the care of paediatric intensivist, Doctor Saskia Coetzee.
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