DUBAI // Noreen Samara longs to do simple, everyday tasks such as drive a car or go shopping for groceries.
Over the past two years, the 34-year-old Dubai resident has been slowly losing her independence due to a condition that attacks the blood vessels in her eyes and has led her to lose 50 per cent of her vision.
As her condition worsens, the only option for the mother of one is a number of costly specialist laser procedures in the UK, without which she will go blind.
But with a Dh500,000 price tag for the procedures, Noreen, who is in debt because of her medical bills, is unable to fund the treatment that would save her sight.
She is now appealing for donations to help pay for the life-changing treatment.
“I am just so scared,” said Noreen, whose husband Mark has put out an appeal for help on Facebook. “I am really desperate.”
Noreen said she began to have blackouts and started seeing black dots in late 2010.
“It was like having mosquitos flying in front of my eyes all the time,” she said.
Noreen, who has a five-year-old son, Robbie, immediately went to Moorfields Eye Hospital in Dubai. But her rapidly deteriorating condition baffled several specialists in the emirate.
“It is so scary when doctors do not know what is wrong with you,” she said.
In February 2011, a group of specialists at the American Hospital Dubai and a vascular surgeon at The City Hospital finally told her she had vasculitis, a condition that attacks the blood vessels all over the body, including those in the eyes. It caused severe damage to the retina and optic nerves in both of her eyes.
“I was shocked, scared and devastated,” said Noreen.
She was referred to specialists at Moorfields Eye Hospital in London, and began an intensive course of steroids to treat the condition.
The Indian, who was born and raised in Dubai and lives at the Marina, said that despite her initial fear of her condition, she is now looking to the future.
Knowing that her job as a sales manager – a job dependent on being able to drive a car – would be affected, Noreen looked to retrain in a career that she could pursue with partial or complete blindness.
“I decided to start studying for a new career as a counsellor, realising that given the prognosis, I may never be able to drive again and could be partially blind for the rest of my life,” she said.
However, her condition has deteriorated in the past few months, forcing her to stop her studies.
“I can never drive again, I cannot go grocery shopping, or even walk around on my own due to partial vision,” she said.
The mother is now fearful of going outside and is almost housebound.
“People can be quite mean,” she said “If you bump into something or cannot see, people are quite cruel and stare. I cannot even tolerate daylight so the blinds are closed all day.”
During her trips to the UK to visit specialists, Noreen said she met and stayed with a woman who lost her sight after being diagnosed with vasculitis.
It gave Noreen a devastating idea of what life would be like if she was blind.
“It is unbelievable. It is like you are living underground, you are not part of society anymore,” she said.
Noreen was told last month that specialised surgery by experts at Moorfields’ main facilities in London was the only option left to save what remains of her vision.
But without a job and accumulating medical bills, the Samaras are already heavily in debt and have been selling furniture, clothes and other belongings to make ends meet.
Noreen is now hoping generous members of the public will come forward and help with the cost of the procedure.
“I need several months of inpatient treatment, including ongoing surgeries to repair the damaged blood vessels and retina to preserve the remaining vision to enable me to have some sight to recover,” she said.
“I am hoping and praying to raise the Dh500,000 needed for medical expenses plus the cost of a three-month stay in the UK.
“Without the ongoing treatment, I will lose my vision and become completely blind. At present with 50 per cent vision, I can get around using a cane stick but I will be completely blind if the ongoing damage is not treated.”
Dr Imran Ansari, an ophthalmologist at Dubai’s Moorfields hospital, confirmed Noreen needed to see a neuro-ophthalmologist in the UK eye or face a “high risk of permanent visual loss”.
To help Noreen, call 050 9501331 or email maahira-noreen@hotmail.com.
jbell@thenational.ae
Mohammed bin Zayed Majlis
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Company%20Profile
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COMPANY%20PROFILE
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Founders: Abdulmajeed Alsukhan, Turki Bin Zarah and Abdulmohsen Albabtain.
Based: Riyadh
Offices: UAE, Vietnam and Germany
Founded: September, 2020
Number of employees: 70
Sector: FinTech, online payment solutions
Funding to date: $116m in two funding rounds
Investors: Checkout.com, Impact46, Vision Ventures, Wealth Well, Seedra, Khwarizmi, Hala Ventures, Nama Ventures and family offices
COMPANY PROFILE
Name: HyperSpace
Started: 2020
Founders: Alexander Heller, Rama Allen and Desi Gonzalez
Based: Dubai, UAE
Sector: Entertainment
Number of staff: 210
Investment raised: $75 million from investors including Galaxy Interactive, Riyadh Season, Sega Ventures and Apis Venture Partners
Company%20Profile
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Herc's Adventures
Developer: Big Ape Productions
Publisher: LucasArts
Console: PlayStation 1 & 5, Sega Saturn
Rating: 4/5
Read more about the coronavirus
COMPANY PROFILE
Initial investment: Undisclosed
Investment stage: Series A
Investors: Core42
Current number of staff: 47
The specs
Engine: 1.5-litre turbo
Power: 181hp
Torque: 230Nm
Transmission: 6-speed automatic
Starting price: Dh79,000
On sale: Now
TECH%20SPECS%3A%20APPLE%20WATCH%20SERIES%209
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COMPANY PROFILE
Name: Almnssa
Started: August 2020
Founder: Areej Selmi
Based: Gaza
Sectors: Internet, e-commerce
Investments: Grants/private funding
The specs
Engine: 1.5-litre 4-cylinder petrol
Power: 154bhp
Torque: 250Nm
Transmission: 7-speed automatic with 8-speed sports option
Price: From Dh79,600
On sale: Now
The specs
Engine: 3.0-litre six-cylinder turbo
Power: 398hp from 5,250rpm
Torque: 580Nm at 1,900-4,800rpm
Transmission: Eight-speed auto
Fuel economy, combined: 6.5L/100km
On sale: December
Price: From Dh330,000 (estimate)
Name: Peter Dicce
Title: Assistant dean of students and director of athletics
Favourite sport: soccer
Favourite team: Bayern Munich
Favourite player: Franz Beckenbauer
Favourite activity in Abu Dhabi: scuba diving in the Northern Emirates
In 2018, the ICRC received 27,756 trace requests in the Middle East alone. The global total was 45,507.
There are 139,018 global trace requests that have not been resolved yet, 55,672 of these are in the Middle East region.
More than 540,000 individuals approached the ICRC in the Middle East asking to be reunited with missing loved ones in 2018.
The total figure for the entire world was 654,000 in 2018.
UPI facts
More than 2.2 million Indian tourists arrived in UAE in 2023
More than 3.5 million Indians reside in UAE
Indian tourists can make purchases in UAE using rupee accounts in India through QR-code-based UPI real-time payment systems
Indian residents in UAE can use their non-resident NRO and NRE accounts held in Indian banks linked to a UAE mobile number for UPI transactions
SPECS
Engine: 4-litre V8 twin-turbo
Power: 630hp
Torque: 850Nm
Transmission: 8-speed Tiptronic automatic
Price: From Dh599,000
On sale: Now
The specs
Engine: Long-range single or dual motor with 200kW or 400kW battery
Transmission: Single-speed automatic
Max touring range: 620km / 590km
Price: From Dh250,000 (estimated)
About Proto21
Date started: May 2018
Founder: Pir Arkam
Based: Dubai
Sector: Additive manufacturing (aka, 3D printing)
Staff: 18
Funding: Invested, supported and partnered by Joseph Group
Game Of Thrones Season Seven: A Bluffers Guide
Want to sound on message about the biggest show on television without actually watching it? Best not to get locked into the labyrinthine tales of revenge and royalty: as Isaac Hempstead Wright put it, all you really need to know from now on is that there’s going to be a huge fight between humans and the armies of undead White Walkers.
The season ended with a dragon captured by the Night King blowing apart the huge wall of ice that separates the human world from its less appealing counterpart. Not that some of the humans in Westeros have been particularly appealing, either.
Anyway, the White Walkers are now free to cause any kind of havoc they wish, and as Liam Cunningham told us: “Westeros may be zombie land after the Night King has finished.” If the various human factions don’t put aside their differences in season 8, we could be looking at The Walking Dead: The Medieval Years.
Gender pay parity on track in the UAE
The UAE has a good record on gender pay parity, according to Mercer's Total Remuneration Study.
"In some of the lower levels of jobs women tend to be paid more than men, primarily because men are employed in blue collar jobs and women tend to be employed in white collar jobs which pay better," said Ted Raffoul, career products leader, Mena at Mercer. "I am yet to see a company in the UAE – particularly when you are looking at a blue chip multinationals or some of the bigger local companies – that actively discriminates when it comes to gender on pay."
Mr Raffoul said most gender issues are actually due to the cultural class, as the population is dominated by Asian and Arab cultures where men are generally expected to work and earn whereas women are meant to start a family.
"For that reason, we see a different gender gap. There are less women in senior roles because women tend to focus less on this but that’s not due to any companies having a policy penalising women for any reasons – it’s a cultural thing," he said.
As a result, Mr Raffoul said many companies in the UAE are coming up with benefit package programmes to help working mothers and the career development of women in general.
MATCH INFO
Liverpool 2 (Van Dijk 18', 24')
Brighton 1 (Dunk 79')
Red card: Alisson (Liverpool)
Signs%20of%20%20%20%20%20%20%20heat%20stroke
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The specs
Engine: 2-litre or 3-litre 4Motion all-wheel-drive Power: 250Nm (2-litre); 340 (3-litre) Torque: 450Nm Transmission: 8-speed automatic Starting price: From Dh212,000 On sale: Now
