Cost beyond reach: Man seeks govt help for medical treatment

Father of three girls has exhausted all savings on treatment of brain tumour

MUZAFFARABAD: The father of three young girls who was diagnosed with brain tumour a year ago is no longer in a position to meet the cost of his medical treatment.

Munir Hussain Kazmi, 46 until last year was working in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) as a labourer and was earning enough to meet the expenses of his family that lives in Chinari, close to the Line of Control.

“All my dreams of a great future for my daughters were shattered when I was diagnosed with brain tumour,” he said, while wiping tears rolling down his eyes.

Kazmi said that he earned plenty to provide a decent education to his three daughters when he was in the KSA. He said that two of them were now at home as he could not afford their college fee.

The tumour has affected complete vision in Kazmi’s left eye and partly the right eye.

The doctors have advised Kazmi that any further delay in treatment may damage the remaining fifty per cent vision in the right eye.

Kazmi has undergone a surgery, but the doctors have recommended another surgery that they believe is vital to save his life. The estimated one and a half million rupees in cost of the recommended surgery is beyond Kazmi’s means.

Kazmi’s wife said that she had sold her jewellery, the shop and a piece of land, to meet the cost of the first surgery. “Now we do not even have enough money to purchase the pain killers,” she said.

She said that her eldest daughter was a graduate
and was working as a teacher in a private school.  “Her salary is only enough to run the kitchen,” Kazmi’s wife said.

She appealed to the government of Pakistan and the Azad Jammu and Kashmir to help her husband with the medical treatment. “We don’t ask for money, I just want medical treatment for my husband,” she said. She requested Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and President Mamnoon Hussain to help them save the life of a father of three girls.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 2^nd, 2015.