Day Muslim doctors touched lives in Zaria
To contribute their quota for the improvement of the health status of vulnerable Nigerians, medical practitioners at the Ahmadu Bello University Teaching Hospital (ABUTH), Shika, Zaria tax themselves monthly. The amount realised and the practitioners’ expertize were jointly used to touch the lives of about 3,000 residents of the ancient city and its environs Daily […]
To contribute their quota for the improvement of the health status of vulnerable Nigerians, medical practitioners at the Ahmadu Bello University Teaching Hospital (ABUTH), Shika, Zaria tax themselves monthly. The amount realised and the practitioners’ expertize were jointly used to touch the lives of about 3,000 residents of the ancient city and its environs Daily Trust on Sunday reports
The Islamic Medical Association of Nigeria (IMAN), Ahmadu Bello University Teaching Hospital (ABUTH), Zaria chapter voluntarily mandated themselves to give back to the communities that hosted and bred them to become medical practitioners. Through a monthly contribution from their salaries, the association engaged in assisting the less-privileged in the society.
IMAN does this by rendering free-medical services to those that have medical challenges and assisting the have-nots with some essentials of life. The association comprises pharmacists, doctors, nurses and other medical practitioners in the ABUTH.
The IMAN chairman in the ABUTH, Professor Adamu Girei Bakari, said the motive behind their humanitarian activities was to save the lives of vulnerable Nigerians, as well as assist them in meeting some requirements of life.
The group usually visits urban suburbs to meet people with special needs. The last exercise took place this week at Dufa-Dufa village in Giwa local government area of Kaduna state. In this round of IMAN’s activities, more than 1,000 people were assisted with medical services. Out of this number, about 100 were offered free surgeries to correct different types of illnesses.
Professor Bakari said: “Since Allah has given us the opportunity to learn this knowledge, then we should share it to the community. Our Prophet (pbuh) has said that the best among you is the one who is beneficial to the people. This is the real essence of our programmes. We want our people to benefit from our knowledge.
“The people you see here, all of them have one health challenge or the other. We are, therefore, rendering them free consultancy service. After this, those that would require surgery would be determined, while those that require drugs would be given for free. We are serving our patients quality service and drugs. All praises are due to Allah, the patients are all here. We are happy that all of them would be served,” he said.
According to him, the patients that require surgeries were usually taken to the Muslim Specialist Hospital at Danmagaji, Zaria.
“This is our third year conducting this programme. Since our work is for the sake of Allah, He is assisting us to overcome our challenges. We were trained by the community, so, we feel we should give back to the community. We usually seize opportunities like these to call on our people to sponsor their children to school so that they would one day become medical practitioners like us.
“In this exercise, we spent about N10 million in buying drugs and the necessary tools for surgeries. We don’t discriminate between Muslims and Christians. Any patient and the needy that turns up is assisted. We are assisting humanity irrespective of religious, tribal or other affiliations,” Profess Bakari explained.
On his part, the Secretary General of IMAN, Dr. Muhammad Mustafa Yakub, gave a breakdown of the people that were assisted at the previous programmes.
“We had one at Unguwan Galadima where we served about 800 patients. We had another one at Bajemi where we saw 1,450 and 38 were operated upon. We had another one in Bomo where 1,400 patients were served and 60 were operated upon.
“In this present one, you can see the population yourself. The aim of the programme is to assist our brothers and sisters in the communities. The fact that most of our brothers are not well-to-do and they don’t have the education to know the right place to go, necessitated our intervention,” Dr. Yakub said
He said the challenges that the group faces are many. The issue of fund shortage and nonchalance of those in authority to make their contribution are some of the major obstacles that IMAN faces.
“This programme is financed by what we were able to raise within ourselves. This is a very big challenge. All praises are due to Allah, because we are making progress despite the challenges. If everyone would share what he has, then there would be little problems within our communities,” Dr. Yakub stated.
Some of the beneficiaries interviewed by our correspondent expressed their gratitude to the organisers, urging other associations to imitate.
Esther Umaru said she was pregnant and visited the venue of the programme for examination.
“I thank God and these people, because I was examined for free and I was also given free drugs. I call on other well-meaning groups and individuals to copy what IMAN is doing in order to assist the less-privileged like us,” Esther said.