Cape Town - Cape Town paediatrician Professor Cyril Karabus, who has been detained in Abu Dhabi for the past five months, has missed the birth of his grandson.
The baby, at whose birth Karabus was to have assisted, was born at the Christiaan Barnard Memorial Hospital on Monday afternoon. He weighs 2.65kg.
Karabus’s son, Michael, told the Cape Argus on Tuesday that the family had missed his father’s presence in the operating theatre.
“We have mixed emotions about it. On the one hand we are ecstatic about my son’s birth, and on the other we are gutted that my father was not here. He is just sitting there twiddling his thumbs… he should be here with his family,” he said.
“Our boy is a healthy and strong baby - a perfect addition to the Karabus family. He and his mother, Jenny Casper, are doing well,” he said.
The doting parents have not yet decided on a name.
Karabus specialises in childhood cancer, and is a former professor of paediatrics at UCT, who headed the oncology and haematology unit at the Red Cross Children’s Hospital for more than 30 years.
He is detained in Abu Dhabi on charges of manslaughter and falsifying documents after a patient of his died in the United Arab Emirates (uae) while he was doing a locum there. Karabus was arrested in Dubai while in transit to South Africa from his son’s wedding in Toronto, Canada.
Michael Karabus said they had been hoping to have his father in the operating theatre, to help deliver the baby, but his spot was filled by his sister, Sarah, who is a paediatrician.
Karabus, 77, who has a pacemaker, was tried and convicted in absentia in the UAE in 2002, after he worked as a locum at the Sheikh Khalifa Medical Centre in Abu Dhabi in 2000.
Prosecutors charge he failed to give a blood transfusion to a three-year-old Yemeni cancer patient, causing her death, during an operation at the Sheikh Medical Centre. She later died of myeloid leukaemia.
Michael Karabus said: “He has been sitting there for more than five months and there is still no direction on where this issue is going. It’s like he is hanging over the edge of a cliff.”
Karabus and his lawyers in Abu Dhabi are waiting for news from the Abu Dhabi attorney-general, who is expected to report to the judge whether or not missing medical records had been found.
Karabus’s wife, Jenifer, is in Abu Dhabi. She is expected to return home early next week.
Karabus’s local lawyer, Michael Bagraim, said although the professor was “happy and joyous” about his grandson’s birth, he told him he would “shed a tear” because he wasn’t there to witness his birth.
Cape Argus