It was 3.30 in the morning, UAE time. Abdullah Bourguiba was in Kazan, Russia — 3,600km from Dubai — when a knock on his hotel room door changed everything.
He opened it to find one of the players from the Al Wasl Sports Club team doubled over in pain, clutching his stomach and barely able to speak. Bourguiba, the team’s delegation manager during that trip, acted immediately. He called for a car and rushed the player to the nearest hospital.
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The doctors examined him and diagnosed him with appendicitis, stating that he needed emergency surgery, immediately.
Bourguiba agreed without hesitation. But then came a demand he had not anticipated. Before any procedure could begin, the hospital asked for a health insurance.
Bourguiba tried to explain they were a sports delegation on a temporary training camp, visitors to Russia with no international health insurance coverage. But the situation was an emergency; every minute mattered.
“Either you have health insurance, or you pay the full cost of the surgery before we proceed,” he was told.
The sum was significant, far beyond what the delegation had available. The team was in the final days of its camp, and the budget had run thin. The player’s condition was deteriorating. The pain was getting worse. And it was the middle of the night.
“There was no one I could call at that hour,” Bourguiba recalled.
One button, one answer
With no other option, Bourguiba picked up his phone and opened the “Your Security at the Touch of a Button” app — a smart emergency system linked to Dubai Police’s General Command, connecting UAE residents directly to the Command and Control Centre under the General Directorate of Operations.
He was not even sure it would work from this distance.
“I was 3,600km from Dubai,” he told Khaleej Times. “I wasn’t certain the connection would reach.”
The moment he connected, he asked the duty officer a simple question: “Do you know where I am?” The answer came back without hesitation.
“Of course. You are in a building facing a river in the city of Kazan, Russia. How can I help you?”
Within a short time, Bourguiba received a call from the UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs. They had already been in contact with the hospital. The player would be taken into the operating theatre immediately.
The surgery was performed successfully. By early the following morning, a delegation from the UAE Embassy had flown in from Moscow to Kazan. They visited the team, ensured everyone was safe, and completed all remaining hospital procedures on behalf of the delegation.
The technology behind the response
The app that made all of this possible was developed under the vision of Lieutenant General Dhahi Khalfan Tamim, then Commander-in-Chief of Dubai Police, who personally named it “Your Security at the Touch of a Button.”
It was designed to provide a complete emergency response system connecting UAE residents to Dubai Police’s Command and Control Centre, wherever in the world they may be.
The system has been tested across the UAE since 2012 along coastlines, in open areas, and across varied environments.
Source: Khaleej Times