PAKISTAN APRIL 2012

On a visit to Pakistan in April 2012, representing SEHT, trustee Dr. Alia Raoof visited the Patient’s Welfare Society INMOL (Institute of Nuclear Medicine of Lahore). The PWS is a voluntary organisation established to assist low income INMOL patients with the cost of various aspects of their care and treatment. During a morning at INMOL, she met with the President of the PWS and some of the volunteers and was privileged enough to be shown around the site. The facilities funded by the PWS include the kitchen from where meals are prepared for distribution to the patients and their attendants (one designated relative per patient) and the shop where items made by volunteers are sold. A particularly impressive area was the Children’s Room (below left) – a play area for children which is no doubt invaluable to the women and children needing to attend the hospital.
 
The charity receives donations into one of several funds, each of which is used only for the purpose specified. These are provision of medicine, food, pain relief and rehabilitation – all of which we in the UK would think of as necessities, but which are unaffordable to the poorest patients in Pakistan.

Having seen first-hand the hard work and dedication with which the PWS provides these services, Alhamdulillah SEHT made a donation to the PWS leukaemia fund of Rs.100,000 (above right). This will Inshallah go towards the cost of chemotherapy treatment of leukaemia patients at INMOL.

During the same visit to Pakistan, Dr. Alia Raoof was pleased to be in contact with Aabroo Educational Welfare Organisation (AEWO), Lahore. Poverty within urban slums is such that parents cannot afford the costs of a school education. These children often have to help out in the home whilst their parents work, work as street vendors or beg for additional income. Consequently children are not educated. In order to break this cycle, Aabroo assists by providing free secondary school education, equipment and uniforms to these poverty-stricken families. SEHT has Alhamdulillah also made a donation of Rs.24,000 to AEWO in order to sponsor four children’s education (Rs. 6000 per year per child).