“Amma nateeja agaya! Mera pehla number aya hai apne class mein!”, nine-year-old Ayesha exclaimed while entering her home after school. It had been annual result day and Ayesha, a student of Class-III at the local government school in Lyari(a suburb of Karachi), had once again managed to clinch the first position in her final exams. Her mother took her up in her arms and started kissing and giving blessings. An ambitious girl had once again proved that firm determination and courage can overcome all obstacles to fulfill her mother’s dream to see her educated.
The event took her mother down memory lane to the day when Ayesha had to fight her first battle between life and death at the age of six months. The child had been getting pale along with fever for a few days. After experimenting with local herbal medicines without success, her mother had brought her to the Pediatric Emergency at Civil Hospital Karachi (CHK), a tertiary care facility in the city, where doctors told her to arrange two pints of blood immediately to save Ayesha’s life as her blood hemoglobin level was too low. With the meager monthly income of her husband and a large family to support, she had brought just enough money for the bus fare back to her home. With tears in her eyes, she shared her agony with the on-duty doctor. The kind doctor told her not to worry and that she can get free of cost blood from the PWA Blood Bank, the only blood bank in CHK.
Ayesha lived. But three months later, to her mother’s dismay, she developed a similar condition and had to be again transfused blood. Soon after, doctors diagnosed her with Thalassemia, a hereditary blood disorder, requiring regular blood transfusions and iron chelation therapy. Ayesha’s mother did not know what kind of disease it was, but she knew that Ayesha’s life would be different from her other children who were healthy, but she accepted it as a mission. As Ayesha grew up, her requirement for blood increased along with the development of other complications due to iron overload. To get all her medical needs catered was an impossible task considering the huge costs involved so her mother got Ayesha registered with the PWA Thalassemia Services at Civil Hospital Karachi. Since then she is getting comprehensive services including regular checkups, blood transfusions, iron chelating therapy and other medicines, completely free of cost. Even though Ayesha still suffers periods of fever and lethargy and has to get blood transfused every fortnight, this courageous girl has taken up her mother’s dream as a task and aims to become a doctor one day.
Ayesha is just one of around 275 Thalassemia patients who visit CHK every month in search of hope. For these patients, blood transfusion is life. With 80% of the population below poverty line in this country of 180 million, and inability of government to cope up with the issue, the role of non-profit voluntary organizations comes into play. Patients’ Welfare Association (PWA) is a non-political NGO run by the volunteer students of Dow Medical College (DMC). Established in 1979 by students with the motto of ‘We Feel, We Serve’, this organization started off with a cabinet of medicines and took up the task of providing basic health facilities to the deserving patients completely free of cost. PWA Drug Bank provides medicines and expensive injections to the admitted patients of CHK. Established in 1982 with the aim of discouraging professional blood sellers, PWA Blood Bank is a service of one of its kind, providing free of cost blood and blood components including packed Cells, Fresh Frozen Plasma and Platelets to patients from all hospitals of Karachi. The blood bank has dispatched one million blood bags in 29 years, and the journey continues. In 1986, PWA Diagnostic Laboratory was set up to provide basic investigations for the admitted patients in evening and night. With the start of new millennium, PWA Follow Up Clinics were instituted to treat patients with TB, Thalassemia, Diabetes, Hypertension, Epilepsy, Asthma and other lifelong diseases. PWA Thalassemia Services were upgraded in 2010 and are now providing comprehensive services to the registered Thalassemics.
PWA’s uniqueness lies in the fact that all services are provided completely free of cost. Being run and managed by the volunteer students of DMC, and supported by generous donors, the organization spent Rs 49.8 million in the year ended 2010-2011.
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