Two young patients at a children\u2019s hospital in Dubai received surprise visitors to their ward \u2014 the President and First Lady of their home country.<\/p>\n
Julius Maada Bio, the President of Sierra Leone, and Fatima Maada Bio, his wife, spent time at Al Jalila Children\u2019s Speciality Hospital in Dubai last month to visit children recovering from cardiac treatment.<\/p>\n
A five-year-old, Princess, and a 12-year-old, Jamie, were flown from Sierra Leone to Dubai for care under an agreement between the hospital and The Chain of Hope, a charity that helps children in developing countries access treatment for heart conditions.<\/p>\n
Princess underwent heart surgery while Jamie underwent a catheterisation procedure, which is used to diagnose and treat heart conditions. Both operations were successful and the patients have been discharged.<\/p>\n
The surprise visitors \u201cadded more cheer and happiness\u201d following news that the procedures had been successful with the President and his wife spending \u201cquite some time with both families,\u201d a hospital spokesman said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is our duty and our pleasure to support the citizens of Sierra Leone wherever they are in the world\u201d, President Bio said during the visit. \u201cWe are very pleased with the successful outcome of their journey and we wish them a safe return to their homes. There is nothing like the smile on a child\u2019s face to give us a bigger hope for a bright future for our nation, and this is what we saw with Princess and Jamie.\u201d<\/p>\n
President Bio and his wife also toured the hospital, which is the only dedicated children\u2019s facility of its kind in the UAE. It opened in 2016 to cater for children and adolescents up to the age of 18, with 200 beds.<\/p>\n
The visit, which the hospital made public on Monday, took place on July 19.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are very honoured by the thoughtful visit of the President and the First Lady of Sierra Leone to two of our patients, and we are all pleased to see both Princess and Jamie in good health and on their way back to their homes,\u201d said Dr Abdulla Al Khayat, chief executive of Al Jalila Children\u2019s Speciality Hospital.<\/p>\n
The National<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Two young patients at a children\u2019s hospital in Dubai received surprise visitors to their ward \u2014 the President and First Lady of their home country. Julius Maada Bio, the President of Sierra Leone, and Fatima Maada Bio, his wife, spent time at Al Jalila Children\u2019s Speciality Hospital in Dubai last month to visit children recovering …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10688,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10687","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","","category-health"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10687","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10687"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10687\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10690,"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10687\/revisions\/10690"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10688"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10687"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10687"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10687"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}