Family of UK’s first surgeon coronavirus victim, Adil El-Tayar, calls on UK to protect health workers

Adil El-Tayar worked at the capital’s St. Mary’s and St. George’s hospitals during his career and passed away on March 25 at a hospital in the west of the city from coronavirus. (Supplied/NHS)
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Updated 01 April 2020
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Family of UK’s first surgeon coronavirus victim, Adil El-Tayar, calls on UK to protect health workers

  • Family of Adil El-Tayar ask why NHS is not testing doctors on a regular basis
  • UK government under fire for not providing enough protective equipment for health workers

LONDON: The family of a Sudanese surgeon who died from coronavirus has called for the British government to do more to protect hospital staff.
Adil El-Tayar, an organ transplant consultant in London, who had also worked in Sudan and Saudi Arabia, was the first National Health Service (NHS) surgeon to die in the UK as a result of COVID-19. The 63-year-old passed away last Wednesday.
“Our view is that the NHS needs to do much more to protect the frontline workers (and) it’s unacceptable that in 2020 in the UK, there is even a question about whether the frontline workers are well protected and they should have been testing frontline staff from the very beginning,” Othman El-Tayar told Arab News.
He questioned why the NHS, who have not been touch with the family since El-Tayar's passing, is not testing their doctors on a regular basis, let alone testing potential COVID-19 patients.
“They tell us just to stay at home for a week and they tell you not to come to hospital unless you become short of breath, at which point it’s too late. So don’t come to the hospital unless you’re coming to die. I mean, it’s absolutely unbelievable,” he said.
El-Tayar, who is also a doctor and has been in self-isolation after developing symptoms, said his father came home from work feeling unwell and began to develop a fever the following day, which he treated with paracetamol.
“Then the temperature progressed, he developed a loss of appetite, had generalized body pain, and that persisted for a few days, but around the fourth day we were becoming concerned because his symptoms weren’t improving,” he said.
After a couple of days, they contacted the non-emergency health number, as per the NHS’ instructions, to get advice and El-Tayar said they were told he should stay at home and wait.
“The next day we called an ambulance because he was still short of breath and still feverish and we took him to the hospital and he was taken to the ICU (intensive care unit),” he added.
He also said that his father was put on a ventilator, but his condition quickly declined and worsened every day and within three to four days he had passed away.
Othman said that his “father helped so many people throughout his life, not just through medicine, just as a person as well.” 
He said he hoped his father’s legacy will live on.
“People need to be aware that this isn’t just a virus and just numbers on the television screen, this is now very real.”
The UK government came under renewed pressure Tuesday over the shortage of protective equipment for health workers and the lack of coronavirus testing available for doctors and nurses.
Dr. Jenny Harries, the deputy chief medical officer for England, apologized for the delay in getting personal protective equipment to NHS staff.
El-Tayar was volunteering on the frontlines against the outbreak in a hospital in central England. 
His cousin, the British-Sudanese broadcast journalist Zeinab Badawi, paid tribute to the surgeon.
“He wanted to be deployed where he would be most useful in the crisis,” she said on the BBC.
Another cousin, Dr. Hisham Al-Khader, the former head of the Sudanese Doctors’ Syndicate in the UK, said El-Tayar “was a pivotal person in our family, and he is highly respected by many people in his country, the Gulf (region) and Saudi Arabia, where he spent a good deal of time.”
Thousands of Sudanese doctors deployed throughout Britain are working on the frontlines of the war against the coronavirus pandemic.
“We doctors are currently already open to the disease, and we need a little more protection than what is offered,” Al-Khader told media.
His colleague, Dr. Nabil Mahmoud Ahmed, the union’s secretary and psychiatrist, said the union and other medical associations and organizations have continued to notice a significant shortage of protective equipment for doctors.
The British ambassador to Sudan, Irfan Siddiq, also praised El-Tayar for his efforts in a tweet and expressed sadness over his demise.

On Monday, health workers paid tribute to another Sudanese-born health worker who died from coronavirus in the UK.
Amged El-Hawrani, 55, an ear, nose and throat consultant, died in Leicester on Saturday.
Meanwhile, an NHS surgeon, who asked not to be named, reiterated to Arab News that the UK government, and the health services need to do more to protect frontline doctors and nurses and said she was disappointed with the British media’s coverage of the death of the two Sudanese doctors, who were the first two practitioners to die in the line of duty, and wondered why such both devastating fatalities were not covered properly. 
“Is it because of the ethnicity of the doctors, or because frontline employees do not matter and are expected to die?”


Son of Singapore’s founding PM Lee Kuan Yew says plans to demolish family home

Updated 9 sec ago
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Son of Singapore’s founding PM Lee Kuan Yew says plans to demolish family home

  • Lee Kuan Yew’s three children were split on what to do with their father’s home after his death in 2015
  • Lee Hsien Yang says the single-story bungalow should be demolished in accordance with their father’s wishes
SINGAPORE: The youngest child of Singapore’s founding Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew said on Tuesday he would apply to demolish the statesman’s home in line with his wishes, following the death of Lee’s daughter last week.
Lee Kuan Yew’s three children, one of whom is Singapore’s third Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, were split on what to do with their father’s home after his death in 2015, in a public spat that saw the siblings estranged.
Eldest son Lee Hsien Loong, who stepped down as Singapore’s prime minister earlier this year, thought it should be up to the government to decide what to do with the property, including potentially retaining it as a heritage landmark.
However his sister, Lee Wei Ling, who died on Oct. 9, and younger brother Lee Hsien Yang say the single-story bungalow, built in 1898 in central Singapore, should be demolished in accordance with their father’s wishes.
“After my sister’s passing, I am the only living executor of my father Lee Kuan Yew’s estate,” Lee Hsien Yang wrote on Facebook on Tuesday.
“In his will, he wished for the house to be demolished ‘immediately after’ Wei Ling moved out of the house. It is my duty to carry out his wishes to the fullest extent of the law.”
He said he would apply to demolish the house and planned to build a small private dwelling to be retained by the family, adding that it was time for the government to approve the demolition.
The office of current prime minister Lawrence Wong did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Lee Kuan Yew told the Straits Times newspaper in 2011 that he wanted the house demolished because it would “become a shambles” if it were opened to the public, and he hoped its removal would improve land values in the neighborhood.
In 2018, a ministerial committee set up to consider the future of the house laid out three options, and said the decision would be left to a future government.
The options were to retain the property by gazetting it as a national monument or for conservation, retain the basement dining room which has the greatest historical significance and tear down the rest of the property, or allow the property to be fully demolished for redevelopment.
At that time, Lee Hsien Loong said he accepted the committee’s conclusion and the range of options laid out.

China deploys record 125 warplanes in large-scale military drill in warning to Taiwan

Updated 21 min 55 sec ago
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China deploys record 125 warplanes in large-scale military drill in warning to Taiwan

  • The military drills come four days after Taiwan celebrated the founding of its government on its National Day
  • Taiwan’s Defense Ministry deploys warships to designated spots in the ocean to carry out surveillance and stand at ready

TAIPEI: China employed a record 125 aircraft, as well as its Liaoning aircraft carrier and ships, in large-scale military exercises surrounding Taiwan and its outlying islands Monday, simulating the sealing off of key ports in a move that underscores the tense situation in the Taiwan Strait, officials said.
China made clear it was to punish Taiwan’s president for rejecting Beijing’s claim of sovereignty over the self-governed island.
The drills came four days after Taiwan celebrated the founding of its government on its National Day, when Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te said in a speech that China has no right to represent Taiwan and declared his commitment to “resist annexation or encroachment.”
“This is a resolute punishment for Lai Ching-te’s continuous fabrication of ‘Taiwan independence’ nonsense,” China’s Taiwan Affairs Office said in a statement.
Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense said 90 of the aircraft, including warplanes, helicopters and drones, were spotted within Taiwan’s air defense identification zone. The single-day record counted aircraft from 5:02 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Shipping traffic was operating as normal, the ministry said.
Taiwan remained defiant. “Our military will definitely deal with the threat from China appropriately,” Joseph Wu, secretary-general of Taiwan’s security council, said at a forum in Taipei, Taiwan’s capital. “Threatening other countries with force violates the basic spirit of the United Nations Charter to resolve disputes through peaceful means.”
Taiwan’s Presidential Office also called on China to “cease military provocations that undermine regional peace and stability and stop threatening Taiwan’s democracy and freedom.”
A map aired on China’s state broadcaster CCTV showed six large blocks encircling Taiwan indicating where the military drills were being held, along with circles drawn around Taiwan’s outlying islands.
Taiwan’s defense ministry said the six areas focused on key strategic locations around and on the island.
China deployed its Liaoning aircraft carrier for the drills, and CCTV showed a J-15 fighter jet taking off from the deck of the carrier.
China’s People’s Liberation Army’s Eastern Theater Command spokesperson Senior Captain Li Xi said Monday evening that the drill was successfully completed.
Li said the navy, army air force and missile corps were all mobilized for the drills, which were an integrated operation. “This is a major warning to those who back Taiwan independence and a signifier of our determination to safeguard our national sovereignty,” Li said in a statement on the service’s public media channel.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said at a daily briefing that China did not consider relations with Taiwan a diplomatic issue, in keeping with its refusal to recognize Taiwan as a sovereign state.
“I can tell you that Taiwan independence is as incompatible with peace in the Taiwan Strait as fire with water. Provocation by the Taiwan independence forces will surely be met with countermeasures,” Mao said.
Taiwan’s Defense Ministry said it deployed warships to designated spots in the ocean to carry out surveillance and stand at ready. It also deployed mobile missile and radar groups on land to track the vessels at sea. It said as of Monday morning, they had tracked 25 Chinese warplanes and seven warships and four Chinese government ships, though it did not specify what types of ships they were.
On the streets of Taipei, residents were undeterred. “I don’t worry, I don’t panic either, it doesn’t have any impact to me,” Chang Chia-rui said.
Another Taipei resident, Jeff Huang, said: “Taiwan is very stable now, and I am used to China’s military exercises. I have been threatened by this kind of threats since I was a child, and I am used to it.”
The US, Taiwan’s biggest unofficial ally, called China’s response to Lai’s speech unwarranted. “This military pressure operation is irresponsible, disproportionate, and destabilizing,” Pentagon spokesman Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder said in a statement. “The entire world has a stake in peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait, and we continue to see a growing community of countries committed to peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait.”
“We call on (Beijing’s government) to act with restraint and to avoid any further actions that may undermine peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait and in the broader region,” State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said in a statement.
China held similar large-scale exercises after Lai was inaugurated in May. Lai continues the eight-year rule of the Democratic Progressive Party that rejects China’s demand that it recognize Taiwan is a part of China.
China also held massive military exercises around Taiwan and simulated a blockade in 2022 after a visit to the island by Nancy Pelosi, who was then speaker of the US House of Representatives. China routinely states that Taiwan independence is a “dead end” and that annexation by Beijing is a historical inevitability. China’s military has increased its encircling of Taiwan’s skies and waters in the past few years, holding joint drills with its warships and fighter jets on a near-daily basis near the island.
Also on Monday, China’s Taiwan Affairs Office announced it was sanctioning two Taiwanese individuals, Puma Shen and Robert Tsao, for promoting Taiwanese independence. Shen is the co-founder of the Kuma Academy, a nonprofit group that trains civilians on wartime readiness. Tsao donated $32.8 million to fund the academy’s training courses. Shen and Tsao are forbidden to travel to China, including Hong Kong.
Taiwan was a Japanese colony before being unified with China at the end of World War II. It split away in 1949 when Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalists fled to the island as Mao Zedong’s Communists defeated them in a civil war and took power.


North Korea blows up parts of inter-Korean road on its side of border, Seoul says

Updated 15 October 2024
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North Korea blows up parts of inter-Korean road on its side of border, Seoul says

  • South Korea’s military had ramped up surveillance and its readiness in response

SEOUL: North Korea has blown up sections of an inter-Korean road on its side of the heavily militarised border between the two Koreas, South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said on Tuesday.
At around midday, some parts of the road north of the military demarcation line dividing the countries were blown up, the Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a message sent to media.
South Korea’s military had ramped up surveillance and its readiness in response, it said. Seoul had warned on Monday that Pyongyang was getting ready to blow up the roads.
Tensions on the Korean peninsula have been increasing amid an escalating war of words after the North accused its rival of sending drones over the country’s capital Pyongyang.
North Korea on Friday said the drones had scattered a “huge number” of anti-North leaflets over the city, in what it called political and military provocation that could lead to armed conflict.
A spokesman for the South’s Joint Chiefs of Staff declined on Monday to answer questions over whether the South Korean military or civilians had flown the alleged drones.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un had overseen on Monday a meeting with defense and security officials to discuss how to respond to the “enemy’s serious provocation that violated the sovereignty of the DPRK,” state media KCNA reported. DPRK is short for the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, North Korea’s official name.


US warns Iran to stop plotting against Trump

Updated 15 October 2024
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US warns Iran to stop plotting against Trump

  • Biden briefed regularly on threats, directs team to address Iranian plotting
  • Iran denies plotting, cites US interference in its affairs
  • White House warns of severe consequences for any attack on US citizens

WASHINGTON: The United States has warned the Iranian government to stop all plotting against Republican Donald Trump and said that Washington would view any attempt on his life as an act of war, a US official said on Monday.
The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said US President Joe Biden has been briefed regularly on the threats and directed his team to address Iranian plots against Americans.
At Biden’s direction, top US officials have sent messages to the highest levels of the Iranian government warning Tehran to cease all plotting against Trump and former US officials, the official said.
The Iranians have been told that Washington would view it as an act of war if any attempt was carried out against Trump’s life, the official said.
Iran has denied interfering in US affairs. Tehran, in turn, says Washington has interfered in its affairs for decades, citing events ranging from a 1953 coup against a prime minister to the 2020 killing of its military commander in a US drone strike.
In January 2020, Trump ordered a US air strike that killed Iran’s then-top military commander, Qassem Soleimani, after receiving intelligence that Soleimani was planning imminent attacks on US diplomats and armed forces in Iraq, Lebanon, Syria and elsewhere in the Middle East.
Trump, a Republican, is now seeking a return to the White House after losing the 2020 election to Biden. Trump is now in a battle against Vice President Kamala Harris in the race for the Nov. 5 election.
His campaign said on Sept. 24 that Trump was briefed by US intelligence officials on the alleged threat from Iran.
The White House said the United States has been closely tracking Iranian threats against Trump for years and it warned of “severe consequences” if Tehran was to attack any US citizen. “We consider this a national and homeland security matter of the highest priority, and we strongly condemn Iran for these brazen threats. Should Iran attack any of our citizens, including those who continue to serve the United States or those who formerly served, Iran will face severe consequences,” said White House National Security Council spokesperson Sean Savett.
He said “appropriate agencies are continuously and promptly providing the former president’s security detail with evolving threat information.”
“Additionally, President Biden has reiterated his directive that the United States Secret Service should receive every resource, capability, and protective measure required to address those evolving threats to the former president,” Savett said.


Arab American PAC rejects both Trump and Harris over their support for Israel

Updated 15 October 2024
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Arab American PAC rejects both Trump and Harris over their support for Israel

  • Analysts said Harris’ chances could be hurt if Arab and Muslim Americans did not vote or voted for a third party. Many from those communities have lost relatives in Gaza and Lebanon and have urged supporters to not vote for Trump or Harris

WASHINGTON: The Arab American Political Action Committee said on Monday it will not endorse Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris or Republican former President Donald Trump citing what it called their “blind support” for Israel in wars in Gaza and Lebanon.
The Nov. 5 US elections will mark the first time AAPAC has chosen not to endorse a candidate since the group’s 1998 inception. It usually endorses Democrats.
Polls show the race between Harris and Trump as tight. Arab and Muslim Americans overwhelmingly backed President Joe Biden in 2020 but have been vocal opponents of US support for Israel, which has eroded their backing of Democrats.
Trump has historically had low approval from that community due to past statements and his policy of a travel ban targeting Muslim-majority nations when he was in office. Like Harris and Biden, Trump has also been a vocal supporter of Israel.
Analysts said Harris’ chances could be hurt if Arab and Muslim Americans did not vote or voted for a third party. Many from those communities have lost relatives in Gaza and Lebanon and have urged supporters to not vote for Trump or Harris. Some like advocacy group Emgage Action have backed Harris, citing Trump as a bigger threat.
“Both candidates have endorsed genocide in Gaza and war in Lebanon,” AAPAC said in a statement. “We simply cannot give our votes to either Democrat Kamala Harris or Republican Donald Trump, who blindly support the criminal Israeli government.”
Israel has denied genocide allegations at the World Court and said it is defending itself after an Oct. 7, 2023, attack by Palestinian Hamas militants that it estimated killed about 1,200 people and in which around 250 were taken hostage.
Israel’s assault on Hamas-governed Gaza has killed nearly 42,000 people, the local health ministry said, while displacing nearly its entire population and causing a hunger crisis. In Lebanon, where Israel said it is targeting Iran-backed Hezbollah militants, the death toll is over 2,000, the Lebanese government said.