Patient needs help in Services Hospital

Patient's hand on left side and his mother's on right side.

You can't appreciate your life and lifestyle in Pakistan unless you visit government hospitals. I visited Lahore's Services Hospital recently. I was searching for a doctor friend in various wardrooms when I come across this patient. His facial features were disfigured because of acromegaly, which causes the patient's hands, feet and face to grow abnormally large. He was crying while talking to someone on mobile phone. I stopped by and inquired from the lady sitting on a bench near his bed. Another good thing about government hospitals is that patients are from humble backgrounds and they don't mind being questioned.
To my question that why is he crying, she told me that he is talking to his younger sister (class 3 student) in Okara and that he is missing her. He was being sent for CT scan and was scared of it. He was trying to comfort himself by talking to his sister. My voice started cracking with emotions and I tried to engage the boy and his mother in conversation. 
I asked her that why don't she bring her daughter to hospital so that she can spend time with her ailing brother. The woman said that she had to borrow money from her relatives and neighbours just to arrange bus fare from Okara to Lahore for two people, adding that she could not afford her daughter's trip to the hospital in Lahore.
Meanwhile, my doctor friend came and informed me about the condition of this patient. According to the doctor, the patient, Fayyaz, aged 24 years, is suffering from brain tumour which has affected his pitutiary gland. Fayyaz had also got cameo-therapy from Shaukat Khanum Hospital in the past. He can only see from one eye and is getting insulin injections for the last two years. Fayyaz is in Services Hospital because of paralysis on right side of his body. He is admitted in Medicine ward number 4 in the hospital.
Really moved by the love between the dying brother and his younger sister, I thought that I should help them in whatever way I could. I am going to Lahore this Saturday (25-06-11) to give a small donation to his mother. If anyone wants to join in and contribute let me know.

Past, present and future in two seconds

What I had not seen. 

The doctor at Services Hospital Lahore was scribbling a subscription. A young boy of a poor gardner was resting on a hospital bed. The whole wardroom was quarantined for dengue patients. The doctor was wearing a mask. The television set outside the wardroom was running the news of Lahore Executive District Officer Health Dr Fayaz Ranja’s sacking over his failure to control the spread of the dengue fever.
The doctor gave the subscription to the boy’s father. The father rushed outside the wardroom to bring medicines from some nearby medical store.

What I did see. 

I had dropped my sister outside the student hostel of Services Institute of Medical Sciences at around 8pm. She was carrying a lot of luggage in the car’s trunk. She went inside the hostel and sent a servant to carry the luggage. I opened the trunk lid of my car for the servant to pick the luggage. He lifted a bag and spotted some cash and a folded paper on the road. He bent down to pick the cash. He was cunning. He had discreetly hidden the money beneath the paper before putting it in his pocket. My sister had seen the money. She inquired from me through gestures that was that my money. I replied in negative before ensuring that my wallet was in the car. The servant put the paper in his pocket and picked the remaining luggage and went inside.

What I would not see. 

The father of the boy suffering from dengue fever reaches a medical store and checks his chest pocket. Seeing nothing in the pocket, he becomes nervous. He looks at the floor of the store, believing that the cash and subscription might have fallen there, but finds nothing. He checks his side pockets, which also turns out to be empty. He runs back, scanning the road from medical store to the hospital. He reaches the wardroom where doctor is awaiting him. The doctor rebukes him for not bringing the life saving medicines and tells him that his son would die without medicines.

Contraceptive for Talibanisation

Few days ago, I went to Services Hospital Lahore to give money to a relative who had telephoned me for. He was in an emergency so I did not change the dress and went there in shorts. When I was about to leave the hospital premises, I bearded man came and introduce himself as doctor (name withheld) and told me in a strict tone that a girls? hostel is nearby and I should not come in this dress. My dress only revealed part of my legs below knees. The doctor believed that I was seducing the girls with my bare calves.I was annoyed as he violated my liberty. I decided in a split-second to ask him what?s wrong with this dress but he walked past hurriedly. I call this mindset Talibanisation. One does not have to sport a unkempt beard, wear shabby clothes or tot an Ak-47 to be a Taliban. The Taliban thinking emerges when we stop respecting or listening to other people?s opinion and force them to accept ours. What happened in Swat when some men tried to introduce social reforms as per their interpretation of Islam. People complied for sometime but later retaliated beyond the expectations of these social reformists. Before the operation in the valley started, various markets in the Malakand region would sport banners barring the women from coming to markets and ordering barbers not to shave beards. Those who violated the Taliban code faced barbaric punishments. Women were also killed on charges of prostitution by groups of young men gathered and armed by the Taliban. The interpretation of the religion is one?s opinion. Various sects have opposite views and interpretations of a certain issue and both the interpretations are not wrong.What one professes is between him and Allah. The problem starts when the interpretation-cum-opinion is preached to other people; and they refuse to accept it, inciting religious hatred.The sensible solution to religious hatred that comes to saner minds is keeping one?s interpretation of religion to one?s self because debates on religion are mostly inconclusive.