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When Rafat Sohail contracted Covid-19, he was extremely worried but not only about himself. Day and night, he couldn't stop thinking about his wife who was fighting a battle of her own. She is a cancer patient, and her immunity was at an all-time low when the virus struck her husband.
"She had a mastectomy and had just returned from chemotherapy. Her body was still very weak. I was also equally worried for my son who is only nine," Rafat said. But all these worries and fears running through his head suddenly disappeared when his condition turned critical.
"I slipped into a phase where I don't remember much," he said.
Rafat had to spend an entire month on a ventilator in Dubai. And with each passing day, doctors were preparing his family for the worse, he said.
"Doctors at Aster proved to be like springboards that brought me back to life. I will forever remain indebted to them."
He survived the virus, but he woke up to another challenge - a whopping Dh227,000 in hospital bills, which he didn't know how to pay.
'He didn't have insurance'
The Indian expat had just quit his job when he caught the virus. At that time, he was doing the paperwork for a new visa, so he didn't have health insurance.
Rafat believed he caught Covid-19 during one of his several meetings in March, while he was preparing to leave the company he worked with for the last 20 years.
"I was doing handovers, meeting a lot of clients outside and, during that time, there wasn't as much awareness on the disease. People were quite casual about social distancing, wearing masks and sanitising their hands. Soon after, I fell sick," he said.
"Covid-19 has been the darkest phase so far for my family."
Out of his Dh227,000 bill, he settled Dh57,000 after digging deep into his own pocket.
He sought help from the Indian Embassy and was granted a waiver of Dh50,000.
Now, he has been desperately trying to find ways to pay his outstanding balance of around Dh120,000, Rafat said.
"As I quit my long-standing job, my visa had been cancelled and I was switching to my friend's company visa. The insurance process was still under way. On some technical grounds I was denied the insurance cover for my treatment and I am now left in a limbo," he explained.
He may have survived Covid-19 but, along with the financial woes, the trauma lingered.
"One tends to have flashbacks and paranoia from time to time and you try to push it back. Even if the disease gradually wears out, the after-effects stay far too long and the psychological scars linger," the expat said.
nandini@khaleejtimes.com
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