When I first met paramedic Jameela A. Za’abi, it was during a huge fire caused by exploding fireworks in a warehouse in Al-Qouz Industrial Area in 2003. She and I were the only women around in the disaster area. As a cub reporter, I was nervously walking around, trying to avoid seeing any dead bodies. However, Jameela the first Emirati female paramedic, was unperturbed and went about treating and supervising the evacuation of the injured workers. Eight people were killed in the explosions, which also destroyed 10 warehouses.
Jameela remembered the incident as one of the worst that she has had to deal with. “Because of the explosions most of the dead bodies were torn to pieces. After ensuring that the injured were taken care of, I had to collect the body parts to take them to the morgue,” she said. She added that the firefighters and other rescue personnel were urging her to go home and relax but she had to make sure that her work was finished.
It is such dedication that earned her the nickname of “Mother of Paramedics.” During last month’s fire in Al-Qouz, which killed at least five people, the mother of two led her team for 17 hours and treated 68 people. They were mostly rescuers who suffered from smoke inhalation at the site. Jameela’s tireless work did not go unnoticed. Sheikh Mohammad ibn Rashid Al-Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai recognized her dedication by paying a visit to her home to thank her personally. “It was the biggest surprise of my life. I could not believe my eyes when I saw His Highness in my house! He thanked me for my work and urged me to keep up the good work,” she said.
The 40-year-old widow’s quest to become a paramedic was not without its struggles. “Just as I was graduating from nursing college, my husband died,” she said. However, Jameela’s mother and her sisters were the pillars that supported her. “My mother encouraged me to continue to work and she helped me take care of the children. If it were not for her and my sisters, I do not think that I would have been able to continue,” she added.
At the time she enrolled in the nursing college, there were not many women working, let alone entering the health sector. Jameela said her class only had a few women studying nursing as a result of the social taboos against the profession. So why did she choose a profession which had so much prejudice against it? Jameela’s answer was that she was fulfilling the wish of her father who always wanted one of his daughters to be a nurse.
“I could never understand society’s taboos toward nursing. As a Muslim woman I was taught that some of the greatest Muslim women were nurses. The contribution of nurses such as Umm Ammara, Rufaida bint Sa’ad and Nusaiba bint Ka’ab in the first battles of Islam was vital for the Muslim army. Their importance can be understood from the fact that the Prophet (PBUH) gave them a share of the spoils of war. Their share was equivalent to that of soldiers who had actually fought and this was in recognition of the importance of their nursing work,” she explained.
In 1995, Jameela joined the Dubai Police as a nurse but was later asked if she wanted to become a part of the paramedic unit. “I jumped at the chance and was the only female member at that time,” she remembered. Jameela, who now heads technical operations at Dubai Unified Ambulance Services, said that for years she was the only female paramedic. “Nowadays we have more Emarati women coming into the field and I am happy that I made it easier for them to choose this profession,” she said.
For Jameel, the most touching moment for her was when she was recently thanked by a laborer for saving his life. The man was one of the seven construction workers who was trapped under a building that collapsed. The workers were constructing a dome when it collapsed and killed 5 of them instantly. The injured were stuck in the cement, which had dried by the time the rescuers reached the scene. “We had to administer first aid to the workers while they were still stuck in the ground. We also had to bolster their spirits and calm them while the rescuers were cutting the cement from around them,” she said. Even though the incident occurred in 2002, the man had not forgotten the woman who had comforted him during his ordeal. “He was so happy to see me and said to me, “Madam don’t you remember me? You saved my life!” Jameela’s answer was that the man should not thank her for doing her duty.