Healthy people cannot understand the meaning of their health unless they deal with a health problem. To feel the pain of others, one can’t only read articles regarding suffering of patients sitting in a well-furnished air-conditioned room. Hospital is best place to visit, where one can see and try to put herself in the shoes of patients screaming with pain, mothers praying for their child’s health and troubled fathers unable to pay the expenses of their ailing children.
Among noncommunicable diseases, cancer is the most lethal disease. According to a recently published report by international agency, more than 10 million people will die of cancer in 2018. Eighty percent of those diagnosed with cancer live in low and middle-income countries.
But since the 1990s, survival rate of cancer has increased dramatically. However its treatment is costly and is a huge financial burden for poor people. Added to the stress of diagnosis and treatment, the economic burden can have long-term effects on the quality of life, future well-being of the family of the patient.
Although cancer does not discriminate between the rich and poor, the wealthy can pursue its treatment, but the rich can’t.
Fida Hassan, a fresh graduate of LUMS, died from blood cancer. He belonged to a very humble family: His father was a small farmer and the only breadwinner for the family.
Although the growth of Hassan’s cancer is fast, its survival rate is high, from 60 to 90 percent. Life-saving therapies like chemotherapy and radiotherapy are expensive, however. When Hassan was transferred to Shaukat Khanam Hospital in Lahore, he was declared to be at the fourth stage of cancer and asked to deposit Rs. 500,000 for admission.
Unable to pay the amount, his family appealed to people for financial support. The news became viral on social media, and within a week, netizens were able to raise two million.
But it was too late. His death is a big slap on the faces of all of us.
Is it ethical for rich people who did not help the family financially to go for condolences when Hassan died? Is it acceptable that mullahs, whose can raise funds for mosques in millions, only focus on prayers for the needy? Although as a Muslims, we should never give up prayers, patient need financial assistance more than prayers. Is it O.K. to go for pilgrimage leaving one of your poor relatives in a critical health situation?
Such actions may render all prayers, fasting, Hajj and zakat irrelevant in the eyes of God. God forgives sins committed against Himself. He does not forgive those that people commit against their fellow human beings. Islam has put significant emphasis on caring for the sick and disabled. The Quran highlights the sanctity of human life by equating saving one life to saving humanity.
The other important question is whether our liberals or seculars are fulfilling their responsibilities? Mullah-bashing has become very fashionable in the drawing rooms of the so-called secular and liberal Pakistanis. They become feminists as long as feminism is practiced outside their homes. They bring in religion when it suits them and disdain it when it doesn’t. The rich liberals wouldn’t help patients financially but will criticize mullahs for not diverting mosque-fund to help patients.
The death of Fida Hassan is a wakeup call for us to help people when they need our help. God has given some of us more wealth and resources not because we are better, but so we share with others what we have in excess.