Ailing Edhi declines Zardari’s offer of treatment abroad

Senator Rehman Malik conveyed offer to philanthropist

Pakistan’s most loved humanitarian figure, Abdul Sattar Edhi has declined former president Asif Ali Zardari’s offer of treatment abroad. The chairman of the Edhi Foundation, Pakistan’s biggest non-profit social welfare organisation, has been on kidney dialysis since 2013.

Senator Rehman Malik conveyed Zardari’s offer to Edhi at a hospital in Karachi on Thursday, the charity’s spokesperson Anwar Kazmi told The Express Tribune.

“Let me take you to London or Dubai [for your treatment],” said Malik on behalf of Zardari. Edhi, however, said he preferred to receive treatment in Pakistan. “I will not go anywhere for treatment,” Kazmi quoted Edhi as telling Senator Malik.



“I told him that if he wishes, we will bring an air ambulance and take him abroad to a hospital of his choice. I told him that I’d also go with him,” Senator Malik later told reporters. “[I told him] ‘God forbid, if your health deteriorates, then we will have to take you abroad’ but he insists on getting treatment at a state-run hospital in Pakistan.”

Women’s rights activist Tehmina Durrani, who is currently collaborating with the Edhi Foundation on food and heatstroke relief centres during Ramazan, also confirmed the development.

“Today, Edhi Sahib rejected Zardari’s offer for medical treatment abroad,” she wrote on popular microblogging site Twitter.

This is not the first time that Edhi has declined an offer for overseas treatment. Edhi, 88, who was diagnosed with kidney failure in June 2013, was told by his doctors that he would have to be on kidney dialysis for the rest of his life.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 11^th, 2016.