Patient Welfare Programme

New Dawn for Noman After Open Heart Surgery

Life was never easy for Noman, a 12-year-old boy who lives in a village in the more outlying suburbs of Hyderabad, Sindh. It only grew tougher after Noman’s father passed away in 1997, leaving behind three daughters, two sons and a widowed wife who have since been eking out a meagre living selling buffalo milk. This level of subsistence rarely allowed Noman or his family to worry about the pain he occasionally felt in his chest.

When the pain became more severe, however, Noman was shown to a doctor. The family eventually reached Aga Khan University Hospital (AKUH) where Noman was diagnosed with a hole in his heart. Doctors prescribed open heart surgery, much to the horror of the poor family. Besides the psychological trauma associated with such a procedure, Noman’s mother and siblings knew there was no way they could meet the huge expenditure the operation would entail.

Moved by the grief-stricken family’s woes, doctors at AKUH referred them to the Patient Welfare Department which readily offered assistance. The cost of hospitalisation and surgery came to Rs. 215,569, of which the family could generate only Rs. 20,000 through contributions from friends and relatives. The Patient Welfare Department provided Rs. 71,856 while the Patients’ Behbud Society for AKUH, a private philanthropy that disburses zakat funds to needy patients, offered Rs. 123,713.

The University assists poor and deserving patients who cannot afford the full cost of the high-quality care offered by AKUH. Since the inception of the Patient Welfare Programme in 1986, over Rs. 1.22 billion has been made available to more than 225,000 patients.

A healthy Noman is now back in his village, enjoying the dawn of a new life.