Today, walk into any hospital and the lobby is packed with people in pain. Try to read their faces, and the one thing that you will find common among them all are the worry lines that say, “What is going to happen to me? Who will take care of me?”
Outside the lobby of the Kidney Dialysis Unit of the Hazrat Bismillah Shah (HBS) Hospital in Bangalore, Fatima is packing her hospital bag to go home with her mother after finishing her four-hour dialysis appointment. Just 26 years old, Fatima was once a bubbly college girl, giggling with her friends, a Business Management student. She loved her studies. After her degree, she completed a course in Human Resources Management.
Fatima is the only child of her parents, who doted on their daughter as a rare gem. They had big dreams for her. They arranged her wedding with a man who they thought would be the “ideal caring husband” for their lovely child. But within just a few months after their wedding, her husband began placing enormous material demands on her parents, which led to the end of the marriage.
Back in her parent’s house, Fatima was taken care of by her father, (with his meager pension), who retired after working as a clerk. Six years later, Fatima’s parents encountered what they thought was another “ideal, educated, life- companion” for their daughter. This time, Fatima felt things would be fine and that all would be well. But two months later, Fatima discovered skeletons in her husband’s cupboard–his extra-marital affairs.
Not only was Fatima mentally shattered, but physically too. She developed typhoid and infections that seriously affected her kidneys. Her second husband and his family rejected and ill-treated her. They made her feel she was a burden. Soon, this marriage ended, too.
Fatima and her parent’s now began travelling from one hospital to another, trying to get the right treatment for her. Nothing at all seemed to help them. They ended up spending huge money on unnecessary tests. In many hospitals, Fatima was treated as a “hopeless case”.
Fatima’s father kept searching for more hospitals”and that’s how he walked into the HBS Kidney Dialysis Unit, in December 2013. It was here that Fatima found a ray of hope. Now on dialysis twice a week at HBS Hospital, she and her parents see considerable improvement in her condition, under the kind care of the hospital team.
Exhausting their savings on their search for the best treatment for their daughter, Fatima’s parents have found some relief in the relatively low cost of dialysis treatment at HBS Hospital”Rs. 550 per session.
Fatima has to be on regular dialysis to regain her strength and energy. Accompanied by her mother, Fatima travels in a bus to reach the hospital. This is hardly comfortable and convenient, but an auto-rickshaw ride is too expensive an option for them.
Fatima has decided to face life bravely. Her mother wants her daughter to live without stress as that will help her recover faster. She hopes that Fatima’s education will one day enable her to work so that she be economically independent.
Fatima needs very good care medical care and regular dialysis to help her remain stable and get back her strength.
The Kind Friends for Kidneys Team, initiated by the HBS Hospital, invites and accepts contributions of Rs 550 every month from people who wish to be part of this effort to enable the economically-weak patients like Fatima, to get a free dialysis each month. Contributions by well-meaning and kind-hearted people to this fund have lent hope and help to many such patients. We are extremely grateful to all of them.
Life is unpredictable. Every day, there is a new patient, with his or her history of poverty. A sum of Rs 550 for a dialysis contributed by you can help lessen their plight.
It is possible that your contribution for free dialysis of Rs 550 every month will help Fatima not only overcome her medical condition but will also help her re-build her life.
She was once a giggly college girl, packing her bag to set off to college, but now she arrives for dialysis at HBS hospital with her hospital bag in tow. God-willing, one day, with your generous contributions, her condition will be stable enough to allow her to pack her office bag to set off to work!
Time waits for none, and as a beautiful hadith of the Prophet Muhammad relates: “Give charity without delay, for it stands in the way of calamity.”
Reflect on this Quranic verse (63: 9-10):
O you who have believed, let not your wealth and your children divert you from remembrance of God. And whoever does that – then those are the losers. And spend [in the way of God] from what We have provided you before death approaches one of you and he says, “My Lord, if only You would delay me for a brief term so I would give charity and be among the righteous.”
Think about it!
We welcome you to join the “Kind Friends for Kidneys Team”, an unconditional friendship that conveys that “you care”!
Your cheques can be drawn in favour of HBS Dialysis, and sent to HBS Hospital, No 58, Cockburn Road, Shivajinagar, Bangalore-560051.
Or, you can deposit your contribution in our bank account:
Bank: Axis Bank, Main Branch.
Name: HBS Dialysis
Account No: 913020048258295
IFSC code: Utib0000009
Swift Code: Axisinnbb009
With peace and Love!
Kind Friends for Kidneys Team
HBS Kidney Dialysis Unit, HBS Hospital, 58, Cockburn Road, Bangalore:51.Ph:080-25541321.
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