An Egyptian woman widely believed to have been the world’s heaviest woman left a Mumbai hospital yesterday more than 300kg lighter for further treatment in Abu Dhabi.
Eman Ahmed, who weighed more than half a metric ton (1,100lb) when she was operated on in March, has not walked for 25 years. She is in her mid-30s.
A series of operations in Mumbai brought her weight down to below 200kg (440lb), her doctor, Muffazal Lakdawala, wrote in a blog post. But she would need further surgery to walk again, he said.
Lakdawala wrote on Wednesday that he had promised Eman “a healthier life and weight loss” which he had achieved.
“Her bone structure is poor,” Lakdawala wrote. “So many years of disuse have compounded the problem. She will need multiple surgeries to straighten her hips and knees.”
Mumbai Police created a special 12km corridor – normally done to facilitate the movement of live organs for transplant – from Saifee Hospital on Charni Road to Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport.
Hospital officials, including Lakdawala and Maharashtra Health Minister Deepak Sawant were present to give Eman and her sister Shaaima Selim a warm send-off.
They were scheduled to fly out at around 4.30pm by Egypt Air but it was delayed by over two hours and departed at 6.50pm, an airport official said.
As Eman was wheeled out in a special imported wheelbed, a large crowd of onlookers and media jostled to click photos and videos.
“We are very thankful to the people of India to the doctors who treated Eman. I respect all the countrymen here and the doctors,” said Shaaima in brief comments to the media.
Appearing very different compared to her arrival in a cargo aircraft from Alexandria and then hoisted on a crane to go to Saifee Hospital, the 37-year old Eman looked relaxed though a tad bewildered by all the attention.
Eman Ahmed is carried on a stretcher as she leaves a hospital in Mumbai, yesterday.
