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LNH to bear cost of Khana Ghar for three months a year to provide three-rupee meals

By M. Waqar Bhatti
June 05, 2016

Karachi   

The Liaquat National Hospital (LNH) administration has pledged to bear three months’ cost of Khana Ghar, a highly subsidized eatery at the outskirts of the city that provides three-rupee meals to the poor.

Run by Parveen Saeed with her ailing husband, the eatery is located in Khuda Ki Basti, Surjani Townm where around 3,500 persons eat three-rupee meals twice a day.

“After meeting Parveen Saeed and learning about her mission the Liaquat National Hospital administration has decided to bear the cost of meals for 12 weeks a year. We are doing this as part of community service,” Dr Salman Faridi, medical director of the Liaquat National Hospital told The News on Saturday.

Moreover, he said, the LNH administration has also offered lifetime free medical treatment to Parveen Saeed and her husband. Saeed recently suffered a stroke while her spouse is a kidney patient and has to undergo dialysis every week.

Under the partnership, Helping Hand Society of LNH, an association of students of the Liaquat National Medical College, would also visit Khana Ghar on a regular basis and try to provide free medical treatment to poor and deserving patients for whom access to health facilities situated around the city centre is difficult.

Dr Faridi claimed that Khana Ghar owner Parveen Saeed was a highly educated lady, who had sold her house in a posh area of Karachi to settle in the less developed outskirts of the city to feed the poor and deserving.

“She has been feeding the poor for Rs2 and now Rs3 for the past 25 years and needs financial support in her mission,” said Dr Faridi. “Her services are not just remarkable but selfless. We learnt about Parveen Saeed was doing and then someone informed of her deteriorating health.

A lady who has been feeding the poor for two-and-a-half decades while facing a life-threatening disease needs immediate support and medical treatment.”

Giving details of the community welfare activities of LNH, Dr Faridi said though the hospital was privately owned, every third patient admitted here received some form of financial subsidy while scores of patients who could not afford their treatment were we being provided free treatment.

“The LNH spends at least 25 percent of its profit on charity. In addition to that, we never refuse treatment to any patient who has a life-threatening disease, has lost a limb or an organ but cannot afford treatment at the hospital.”

Dr Faridi said every year, as many as 75,000 people were admitted at the hospital while 600,000 visited the out-patient departments (OPDs) besides around a million diagnostic tests at its radiological labs.

“In order to provide quality healthcare on affordable prices to a larger number of people in Karachi, we have now established remote medical centres in five different areas where OPDs and diagnostic facilities are available. A diabetics’ care centre has also been established in Gulistan-e-Jauhar to facilitate people with diabetes and its complications,” said the LNH director.

To a query, Dr Faridi claimed the hospital management was not willing to take over government health facilities and manage them. However, he said, the management could help the authorities in building their capacity and advise them on how to manage the resources of public institutions.