Humanity in need: As funds dry, historic hospice needs help

Saint Joseph’s Hospice barely has enough funds to get through next five months.

RAWALPINDI:

For six decades, the destitute and needy in Westridge and the rest of Rawalpindi have had a place where they knew they would be looked after, regardless of caste or creed.

However, in a few months, that could all be a thing of the past.

Saint Joseph’s Hospice in Rawalpindi has been in dire financial straits ever since foreign donors started packing up and leaving the country after 9/11. The decline in foreign donations since then has left the care facility on the brink of closure.

“The hospital has been facing a funds shortage after foreign donors started leaving the country for security reasons, while some have stopped sending donations from abroad,” said Sister Margaret Walsh, an Irish nun who is the chief administrator at the hospice.



Sister Walsh also spoke of how the hospice has always provided a place for the sick and elderly, regardless of faith, when they were rejected by their families and refused admission by other hospitals.

The 50-bed Saint Joseph Hospice on Connaught Road Westridge was established in 1964 by Father Francis O’Leary, a missionary Catholic priest, and Sister Dolores from Spain with support from the Franciscan Missionaries of Mary (FMM). Since then, thousands of patients have been provided free treatment and care.

After 2001, when donations started dwindling in, the hospice tried its best to make the most of the available resources. However, its financial constraints are compounding with each passing day. Of late, this financial stress has led the hospital administration to reduce the number of patients in the boarding house. Currently, 45 patients from various parts of the country including Skardu, Swat, Gilgit and Azad Jammu and Kashmir are residing in the boarding facility of the hospital.

“We have a long list of patients who are waiting, but lack of funds is hindering our ability to admit them,” said Nagina Joseph, an assistant at the hospital. This is also because the hospice takes responsibility for the care of patients who are immobile or have no relatives, with some such patients having lived in the hospital for the last 25 years.

Forty-five-year-old Rehana Bibi, a resident of Koshistan, has been residing in the boarding house of the hospital for the last 15 years. She said the nuns’ love and care never let her feel homesick, because “this is my real home”. Bibi sometimes works on traditional handicrafts, which the hospital management helps her sell.



Currently, a total of 26 medical staffers — four doctors and 22 nurses — are serving patients in the facility.

Age no bar

“Thank you sister,” shouted Shehryar Khan, a six-year polio-crippled child from Swat. Khan had just gotten a new wheelchair and was beaming. Shehryar is one of five disabled children who also live in the hospice. The love and care they receive was evident while The Express Tribune spoke to him, as he hugged Sister Walsh and said, “She is my mother.”

The hospice is also providing education to the children in a nearby school besides working on their rehabilitation.

The disabled patients are washed, dressed and given food before being taken to the lawns or clinics for physiotherapy or other treatment.

Love is free, but provisions cost money

Doctors say around 100 patients visits the OPD daily. In an attempt to shore up its dwindling income, the hospice’s volunteer board decided to raise the OPD fees, one of the only direct sources of revenue for the charitable facility. However, patients strongly protested the move and the management withdrew the measure. Hospice staff said that some local donors were helping them in kind and cash, but that was not enough to meet its expenses.

Sister Walsh said that the facility needs a steady source of funding. “Rs1.6 million is the monthly expenditure of the hospital, which includes staff salaries, utilities bills, kitchen expenses and fuel costs, while the income is far below that,” she said. As winter sets in, elderly patients such as Mary, 89, a former teacher at Presentation Convent High School, enjoy their time in the sun even more than usual, Dr Rizwana Arshad, a volunteer at the facility, had a simple request for those who care. “We are in desperate need of donations and financial assistance. I appeal to all philanthropists, businessmen and traders to help the destitute and abandoned.”

Published in The Express Tribune, December 8^th, 2013.