Our Stories

Dr. Sama Mukhtar Associate Consultant Emergency Medicine, Indus Hospital. My kids call this device Star Troopers-inspired. Try breathing through it, live a day through it, periodically lift it off the nose because you don’t want to risk fracturing your nasal septum. 3M Is the new LV!!! The prismic pressure bruise left on the face is something to live by. It never crossed my mind that I shall live through a pandemic. Never had I imagined that we would be making history in 2020

Life was already tough for Aaliya who was born in a poor family of Tando Saeed Khan – a small town in Sindh. Her father married her off at a young age, to ease his financial burden. Her husband was quite older than her and was barely making his ends meet. Along with other issues, Ramzan – Aaliya’s husband – used to take drugs. Unlike her fellow women, Aaliya has a progressive and practical approach towards life, so knowing the fate

The Community Engagement Centre’s community health workers (CHW) met Nazia on a visit to a local community. At the time, Nazia was very unwell – she was suffering from Hepatitis C. She sought treatment from several places, including a hospital in Hyderabad, however her condition never improved so she gave up treatment completely. The CHWs conducted a detailed dialogue with her about her experience of Hepatitis C and how free treatment is being offered at the nearby Primary Care Clinic.

Ruqaiya is a resident of Lyari, Karachi. Before her marriage, she worked as a Community Health Worker. After her marriage, she worked as a maid in order to support her family. When Ruqaiya was diagnosed with Drug-Resistant Tuberculosis, she fell into denial. The diagnosis had many adverse effects on her physical and mental health along with her social life. She had to quit her job and after some months of treatment, she began to lose her hearing – a common

Muhammad Imran belongs to Rahimyar Khan.  The family is consisted of Imran, his wife, and their three children. The unfortunate family suffers with clubfoot.  According to Imran, “I was unable to walk much when I was young. As I would walk slowly, I was constantly ridiculed by other children. They would say ‘What would become of him?’ This is how time passed. Then I grew up and got married with a clubfoot girl. I am blessed with three

A man who is the provider for his wife and two young daughters, can’t afford to sit home without any employment or business. Life could become a nightmare for such unfortunate people and especially if they are disabled. One such case was of Mohammad Shahid. 41 years old Shahid was a cardboard collector, with a small warehouse in New Karachi. Things were as okay as they could be for a poor man until he met with a small accident. Initially,

It was a usual day at the clinic: complex referrals, difficult diagnoses and frequent power shutdowns. Patients in the waiting area had been waiting for over two hours and were agitated and quarrelsome. In the midst of all this, I got a call on the desk phone from the Emergency Department: “I have this 12-year-old boy with rabies. What should I tell the parents?” “Oh, God”, I thought, “This is the most difficult task of the day. I left the clinic

“My son is alive because of your generosity”, Gul Zaman While going through the Indus Hospital’s Facebook Page, we noticed a comment. It wasn’t a paid comment, neither he was an influencer. Then who was he?Gul Zaman is the father of a cancer survivor. He was pleading people to donate for the Indus Hospital because he knows if the hospital has resources, children could be saved from untimely death. Gul Zaman is a graduate, living in Ziarat, Baluchistan. He teaches in a

The Odds Were in My Favor, Abdur Rahman “I was declared DNR – Do Not Resuscitate. The doctors didn’t tell me but I could sense it. I started crying. Physically I was unable to move but my mind was functional. A sense of gloom and anguish engulfed me. It seemed I would never see my children again. I was missing all my family and friends. I was thinking about the plans which won’t be materialized. I never thought of dying in

We are living a thousand lives each day! “We deal with suspected and confirmed COVID cases all day long, donning and doffing our personal protective equipment (PPE), going through the laborious routine of breathing through an N95 mask, which we are fortunate enough to have, while some of colleagues across Pakistan aren’t. Yet we are fearful. Our worst fear is taking it back home to our families, our loved ones. We are isolating ourselves because as doctors and healthcare providers, we