Desperate measures: The uncompromising health system, begging to survive

The deficit of Zakat funds at public hospitals is forcing patients and their families to beg.


Sehrish Wasif July 12, 2011

ISLAMABAD:


Zakat funds have been unavailable for the past one month in public hospitals of the twin cities. The acute shortage of money to pay for the medical expenses of poor patients is forcing their relatives to resort to begging , The Express Tribune has learnt.


Noreen, the maternal aunt of Asma Shaukat, a four-year-old girl and patient of Thalassemia, under treatment at Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (Pims) is one of them.

“I am collecting money”, she pleaded, “Please lend me some so that I can buy medicines for this innocent baby girl,” said Noreen, while carrying Asma in her hands, who looked too pale, malnourished and held a pacifier in her mouth. The girl is a Thalassemia patient by birth. She added that many patients were not getting medicines at the hospital, due to the unavailability of funds, which had forced them to seek financial help from the visitors.

Asma’s mother is a widow and a domestic worker, she added.

Talking to The Express Tribune, Samina Shaukat, mother of a four-year girl, said that it had become too difficult for her to arrange money for the injections for her daughter due to the unavailability of Zakat funds. “I gather money for them by doing dish washing, sweeping and laundry at houses near my place,” she said. She cannot afford the tablets, which cost Rs350 each. So she buys injections as a substitute, these cost Rs180 and need to be injected 24 days in a month.

“I feel ashamed to ask for money, but what can me and my sisters do? I have to do this for my daughter,” she said.

She further said that she approached Baitul Mal for financial assistance, but was refused and told that her daughter illness was long-term, so they could not spend a hefty amount on one patient. As they had already given her financial assistance for two years. There are many other patients of cancer, hepatitis among others, who are in dire need of money.

Samina also approached Pims Social Welfare Officer, Tariq Mehmood Chohan, who said the same thing. And that it might take up to 10 days to maybe two or three months to get the funds.

While talking to The Express Tribune, Chohan said, these gaps in Zakat funds arise at the end of every fiscal. However, the cost of the medicines for the poor patients is being covered through Baitul Mal so they don’t have to face difficulty.

Sources on condition of anonymity said that the amount of the Zakat funds is not increasing, as compared to the rise in the number of patients in the hospital. However, during this gap the supply of the medicines for the other (high-profile) patients in the hospital continues.

Shaista Bibi*,35, a hepatitis patient at Holy Family Hospital was found doing the same.

“The only way to gather money for my injections is to beg in front of others,” she said. Moreover, an official in the social welfare department of the hospital said on July 11, bidding for the tenders will be held. And it is not certain how long the process will continue, he added.

* Name have been changed to protect the person’s identity.





Published in The Express Tribune, July 12th, 2011.

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