‘Donations to Edhi Foundation decreasing’

At inaugural session of Karachi Con-16, Faisal Edhi says charity

organisation facing financial  problems after his father’s demise

Donations to the Edhi Foundation have started decreasing after the demise of its founder, Maulana Abdul Sattar Edhi, causing immense problems for the charity organisation, Faisal Edhi, the son of the late philanthropist, said on Saturday.

The Edhi Foundation helps the poor, orphans, widows, disabled people, prisoners and even animals throughout Pakistan.

“Donations to the Edhi Foundation have declined after Edhi sahib’s death and we are facing a difficult time both emotionally and financially,” he added.

“I urge Pakistanis abroad to cooperate with us so that we can continue Edhi sahib’s mission of serving humanity,” he told reporters at the inaugural session of the Karachi Con-16, a medical conference organised by the Pakistan Islamic Medical Association (PIMA).

PIMA has dedicated the inaugural session of their two-day medical conference “Karachi Con-16” to pay tribute to Edhi and highlight the importance of service to ailing humanity and relief work in the cases of natural and manmade disasters. Hundreds of medical students and young doctors attended the “Career Guidance Seminar” on the sidelines of the Karachi Con-16, where experts from the medical profession and pharmaceutical industry presented a detailed overview of career opportunities in Pakistan and abroad.

Conducted by renowned haematologist Dr Zeeshan Ansari, the career guidance seminar was addressed by PIMA Karachi president Dr Atif Hafeez Siddiqui, Prof Wasay Shakir, Dr Kashif Shazli, Dr Jamil Ahmed, Jamshed Ahmed, Dr Jawaid Mallick, Dr Muneer Sadiq, Dr Saad Jillani, and Dr Atif Mansha.

Faisal maintained that the Edhi Foundation was going to start the first school for the training of ambulance drivers, medical technicians and paramedics in Karachi next month.  He added that ambulance drivers, paramedics and midwives from the entire country would be trained at the school in Lyari. There, they will learn to lives during conflicts and disasters and shift injured people to hospitals at the earliest as well as stabilise their condition at the scene.

“Modernisation of the Edhi ambulance service was a dream of Edhi sahib and it will be achieved sooner or later but at the moment, we are concentrating on the basic service of shifting wounded people or others in need of medical attention to the nearest hospitals without wasting precious time,” he added.

He recalled that hundreds of people had died during a devastating earthquake in Mashkey area of Awaran, Balochistan in 2013 because there was no fully-equipped and modern hospital in the entire Awaran area and many people had died of excessive bleeding and absence of timely medical treatment.

“We must put aside our prejudices while serving humanity or we won’t achieve anything. Pakistan can’t be saved if we marginalise people on the basis of our prejudices”, Faisal said. He urged doctors to serve the ailing humanity without discriminating on the basis of religion, race, ethnicity or cast.

“That is what was taught to us by our Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) and that is what was practiced and preached by Edhi sahib,” he added. He felicitated PIMA for dedicating their conference to the late Maulana Edhi. He maintained that Edhi never wanted to receive treatment at a private hospital as the majority of Pakistani poor people could not afford such health facilities. “On several occasions, he had to be assured that the Sindh Institute of Urology and Transplantation was part of the Civil Hospital Karachi where he received treatment and breathed his last,” he said. “We need to improve public health institutions to serve the masses. We have no other options to ease the miseries of ailing and suffering humanity in Pakistan.”

Prof Adibul Hasan Rizvi, the director of the SIUT, lauded PIMA for holding a focused conference for medical professionals in Karachi and said Edhi even on his death bed had served the suffering humanity by donating both his corneas which restored the eyesight of two people after his demise.

“Edhi sahib was a person who brought this scattered nation together and served not only in Pakistan but also abroad, proving that serving humanity was the biggest cause of his life,” Prof Rizvi added.

“The Edhi Foundation has the big fleet of ambulances, which is not available in any other country except Pakistan.”

Paying rich tribute to Edhi, Prof Rizvi said the late philanthropist avoided undergoing dialysis in his last days because he had to collect donations, arrange relief activities and run the affairs of his foundation and even after death, he provided the philosophy of cadaver donation. Prof Dr Sohail Akhtar, the secretary of the Karachi Con-16, in his address introduced PIMA to the guests and participant of the conference. He said PIMA was an organisation of doctors who feel felt prod to be Muslims and also served humanity without any discrimination.

He said PIMA was running two hospitals in the earthquake-ravaged areas of Kashmir and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa including Muzaffarabad and Mansehra and in Karachi operating a state-of-the-art eye hospital. Besides, it is also running a medical and dental college in Peshawar.

The chairman of the Akhuwat Foundation, Dr Amjad Saqib, presented a lecture on theme of the medical conference and asked doctors to serve people like the Muslims of Madina at the time of Hijrat.  Prof Dr Hafeez-ur-Rehman delivered a lecture on “Social Responsibility in Islam and Doctors”. Other speakers included paediatrician and medical stalwart Prof Abdul Ghaffar Billo, psychiatrist and chairman of the conference Prof Iqbal Afridi, and Dr Atif Hafeez Siddiqui.