First Lady visits ailing Bilquis Edhi at Karachi hospital

KARACHI: First Lady Tehmina Durrani on Wednesday visited ailing Bilquis Bano Edhi, the wife of Pakistani humanitarian and philanthropist Abdul Sattar Edhi, at a private hospital in Karachi and inquired after her health.

As per the Edhi Foundation staff, Bilquis was admitted to a private hospital on Stadium Road over a blood pressure problem. They said that Bilquis has been under treatment for a few days and she is getting well.

A day earlier, newly elected Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif visited the mausoleum of Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah to pay homage and respect to the father of the nation but no one knew why the First Lady was not accompanied by him until she shared a picture of her with ailing Bilquis. She earned love and respect from the people due to her kind gesture.

First Lady of Pakistan Tehmina Durrani visited Bilquis —who is also one of the most active philanthropists in Pakistan — at the hospital.

Taking to Twitter, Tehmina expressed great sorrow as she revealed that Bilquis is extremely ill. She said that though she is the First Lady now, as referred to by Bilquis, no "First Lady can match up to the greatness of Edhi’s Bilquis."

"Today Bilquise & I wept a river in her hospital room. She cried for Edhi sb & I cried for her. She is So unwell! And when she called me the 1st lady I squirmed. Indeed NO 1st lady can match up to the greatness of ‘Edhi’s Bilquise’," Tehmina wrote.

PML-N leader Ahsan Iqbal retweeted Tehmina's post and prayed for her speedy recovery.

In another post, she said, "While PM Shebaz Sharif paid his respects at The Founder of the Nation’s Mazar, I went with Saba & Saad Edhi to salute Abdul Sattar Edhi for his relentless lifelong efforts 2 actualise The Qaide’s dream for Pakistan: A Social Welfare State. The directions r on his gravestone. "

Who is Bilquis Edhi?

Bilquis is a professional nurse and heads the Bilquis Edhi Foundation. She has spent more than six decades of her life on humanitarian work and her charity has saved over 42,000 unwanted babies so far, by placing ‘jhoolas’ [cradles] at the Edhi Homes and centres across Pakistan.

Called the Mother of Pakistan, Bilquis has already been given various national and foreign awards including 'Person of the Decade', Hilal-e-Imtiaz (Pakistan), the Lenin Peace Prize, Mother Teresa Memorial International Award for Social Justice (2015), and the Ramon Magsaysay Award for Public Service, she received along with her husband Abdul Sattar Edhi in 1986.