The Bethania Hospital is run by the Archdiocese of Lahore. Physicians also fight stigma associated with the disease through counselling and outreach to locals. Each year, 70,000 people die of TB in Pakistan.
Sialkot (AsiaNews) – For the past 52 years, the Bethania Hospital in Sialkot (Punjab) has provided free medical treatment to poor tuberculosis patients.
The facility is the only Catholic hospital run by the Archdiocese of Lahore. Its staff are involved in breaking down the stigma associated with the disease to help patients who are often abandoned by their families once they find out about the disease.
“Locals still think these patients as untouchable,” Fr Robin Bashir, the hospital director, told AsiaNews. “Their clothes and utensils are quickly separated from those of rest of the family. Unmarried women request to keep their treatment a secret. The stigma is one of the reasons our gynaecology ward has poor visitors”.
“Last year a man admitted his wife, paid the bills and sent the divorce notice next day at the address of the hospital. Discrimination is followed by hate”.
Still Father Bashir and his team are trying to counter this through awareness sessions with attendants and locals in surrounding villages as well as follow up visits to patients’ home. The TB outreach programme is a major service provided by the hospital.
What started as a dispensary has developed into 134-bed facility with separate departments for physiotherapy, nursing school, anti-obesity centre, and medical and surgical wings.
Every day around 200 patients, almost all of them Muslims, visit Bethania Hospital located in front of a Catholic Church.
Recognising its services, the Government of Pakistan approved it as a charitable institution in April 1991, thus reducing its taxes by 50 per cent. The hospital also receives free medicines for TB treatment under the National TB Control Programme.
According to the latest data, Pakistan ranks 6th globally among the 22 high TB burden countries.
In a country of 180 million people, around 430,000 people, including 15,000 minors under 18, contract TB each year. About 70,000 TB patients die annually.
Adnan Ahmad, 32, spent two years consulting different herbalists. Then “We heard about the mission hospital”, he explained. “The Christians are doing the right thing by helping poor people.”