“No other work gives you more satisfaction than helping poor people:” Dr Gafoor
Not many people would consider giving up their comfortable, albeit hectic schedule in the US and traveling to India to treat poor patients at their own cost? But a couple from Chicago has been doing exactly this for the past four years. Dr. Sabiha Gafoor (58), a pediatrician, and her husband, Dr. Mohammad Abdul Gafoor (65), doctor of internal and family medicine, from Chicago have been visiting India every year since 2012 to treat poor patients in rural and slum areas of India. The couple first came for treating poor patients in India in 2012, with a US-based Indian charity organization, Indian Muslim Relief and Charities (IMRC), which conducts an annual India Health Initiative for treating poor patients in India for free. The Initiative was started by IMRC in 2010. Every year, doctors from the US, volunteer for this initiative by rendering their services free of cost. Since its inception, the organization has successfully conducted seven initiatives.
Dr. Sabiha and M.A Gafoor have treated thousands of patients in three such heath initiatives, in Uttar Pradesh, Telangana, Kerala, Rajasthan and Haryana. Dr. Gafoor considers helping poor patients in India as a moral responsibility. “India is the country which modeled me, raised me and helped me to pursue my goal. I always had the desire to come back to India and serve people”, he says.
This year, the husband-wife team travelled to Barabanki (Uttar Pradesh), slums in Hyderabad and villages in Kozhikode district, Kerala, to treat poor patients for free. Every day, they examined and treated between 100 and 150 patients, often working 10 hours a day.
Explaining the level of satisfaction they get from volunteering for free health camps in India, both the doctors say, “No other work gives you more satisfaction than helping poor people. It is like a mental therapy for us. At the end of the day, when we examine and treat poor patients here in India, we feel much relaxed and peace in our lives may be due to their prayers.”
(Extracted from twocircles.net)
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