Poverty conundrum: For this aplastic anaemia patient, road to recovery made harder

Yasmeen unable to seek treatment due to exorbitant costs.

RAWALPINDI:

In medical ward six, bed number seven at the Benazir Bhutto Hospital (BBH), lies a young mother who has been forced to abandon her one and a half year old son due to illness.

Yasmeen, 20, has been diagnosed with aplastic anaemia, a blood disorder where a patient’s bone marrow does not produce sufficient blood cells. The cure, a bone marrow transplant, costs Rs1.8 million which she and her family cannot afford.

In these trying circumstances, Rahat Gul, Yasmeen’s husband, has struggled to keep the family together. Roaming the country trying to find an affordable treatment plan for his wife, Gul has not encountered much luck.

When Yasmeen gave birth to their son, Umer Ameen, by C-Section her health began to deteriorate forcing Gul to take her to a hospital in Hyderabad. After unsatisfactory treatment, they went to Karachi where Yasmeen’s condition was diagnosed and the cost of her treatment was narrated to the couple.

Now at BBH they have been referred to the Combined Military Hospital (CMH), where the couple has been asked to deposit Rs0.3 million. Around Rs1.5 million is the cost of the transplant itself. “I have told them I am poor and unable to gather this much money, but they are refusing to admit her,” Gul told The Express Tribune. In an attempt to collect money for the procedure, Gul sold their wedding jewellery but it raised only Rs0.1 million.

The doctors at BBH have asked Gul to take Yasmeen home but due to the fear of her condition worsening he is intent to keep her at the hospital. Talking to The Express Tribune, Dr Imran Arshad, a medical registrar at BBH, said, “They have travelled the entire country to get treatment, but unfortunately poverty has become one of their major obstacles.”

“They have requested Baitul Mal for assistance but the request is being processed,” he added. According to Arshad, there is no other treatment for this disease but a bone marrow transplant.

When contacted, Baitul Mal Managing Director Zamurd Khan accepted that there was a delay in providing financial support to patients and attributed it to a shortage of funds. “I know millions of patients are suffering due to this, but for the past five months we have not received any funds from the government,” he said, adding that a majority of their existing funds have been used in flood rehabilitation. “We have moved forward a request of Rs500 million and are waiting for approval,” he added.

Summing up the ordeal of many such patients, another doctor from the garrison city said, “In our country, most of the deserving patients do not get any support from the government. It seems as if the state does not recognise its responsibility towards them.”

He added, “They (patients) are forced to resort to charity for assistance. Many are lucky to get it, while for others its just a long wait.”

Published in The Express Tribune, March 15^th, 2012.