"To provide ethical and high quality medical and social services with dignity and respect at subsidized rates, which the people can afford” declares the mission statement of Kharadar General Hospital (KGH) in Karachi. It stands proudly in the busy neighborhood of Kharadar in Saddar, the original heart of the city, amongst the hordes of rickshaws and commercial hustle bustle. The state-of-the-art 250-bed hospital provides much-needed healthcare to the area and has existed in many forms for more than a century. Started in 1918 during the British Raj as domiciliary service for vaccinations against smallpox and assisting with deliveries in the neighborhood, by 1936 it had evolved into a 50-bed maternity home. By the 1960s it was offering family planning services and a specialized pediatric clinic. Then in 1978, Mr. Bashir Jan Muhammad, now an eminent industrialist and businessman, came onboard as the Honourary General Secretary of the managing committee and became the President in 1985.
“I had a personal affiliation with this area as I lived there from the day I came to Pakistan from India when I was just seven years old. It was my home from 1947 to 1960” says Mr. Bashir Jan Muhammad. “It is one of the poorest areas in Karachi with a dismal lack of health facilities. Even the general practitioners closed shop and moved to more affluent areas where they could make more money. So there was a dire need for quality healthcare facilities in the area.” Today KGH serves 4-5 million people in the socio-economically marginalized area including Kharadar, Lea Market, Chakiwara, Khadda, Bihar Colony, Moosa Lane, Keaamari and Sher Shah. Even patients from as far as Baluchistan come to KGH.
Surprisingly all this runs on a not-for-profit basis. “Our charges are practically around 20% compared to the larger hospitals” reveals Dr. Iqbal
The journey of creating a modern 250-bed hospital from a small maternity home, however, has not been an easy one. They had 4,000 square yards to construct on, which was rare in the area, but there was a lack of funds. Speaking frankly, Mr. Jan Muhammad reveals that at the time he did not have a lot of wealth. But his father, Mr. Dawood Jan Mohammad – prominent lawyer and philanthropist – encouraged him to give it his best shot. “It was a challenge, so I went for it,” says Mr. Bashir. When the ground floor work started he was the president of the Karachi Stock Exchange and his friends there came forward with support. The (late) Mr. Mohsin Siddiqui of Pak-land Cement and Mr. Sultan Mowjee of Razzak Steels contributed cement, iron, and steel on concession and credit basis. Begum Nusrat Bhutto laid the foundations in March 1989, and the building was completed in 1991.
Mr. Jan Mohammed then brought on renowned pediatric endocrinologist Dr. A. Ghaffar Billoo (Sitara-i-Imtiaz for Public Services recipient in 2007) as the chairman of the management committee to incorporate his technical expertise. Dr. Billoo’s connection with the hospital also ran deep. His first child had opened his eyes there in 1960. The Obstetric & Gynecology department, which today brings more than 6000 young souls into the world per year, needed an onsite pediatric department for those born underweight or with other problems. Dr. Billoo created new wards, the pediatric ICU, the neo-natal ICU, and the children’s ward. Under his careful supervision, the new Pediatric and Neonatology department became the finest and busiest in the area.
Begum Nusrat Bhutto and Mr. Jan Muhammad in 1989
It was then that the management committee thought about extending their services to form a general hospital housing all functional departments. Today the services accessible include Internal medicine, Cardiology, Neurology, Psychiatry, Dermatology, a tuberculosis clinic, Gastroenterology and a Thalassemia Clinic. The hospital also houses an 11-bed ICU with ventilators. The surgical department provides general, Orthopedic, Neuro, Pediatric, ENT, Ophthalmological, Laparoscopic, Breast and Dental surgery with 24-hour emergency support. Around 6,000 elective and emergency surgeries are performed by the department annually. The hospital caters in-house to more than 14,000 inpatients and over 200,000 out-patients a year.
Another exceptional feature for the area comes in the form of the Farhat Rasheed Physiotherapy and Rehabilitation Centre which was founded in 1996 by the late Mr. Jan Muhammad Dawood – named after his granddaughter Farhat Rasheed, who was President and Founder of the ‘Show you Care’ platform. The center provides Physical, Occupational and Speech therapy and a subsidized transport facility to 30,000 patients annually.
Problems with recruiting good nurses and technicians led to the inclusion of teaching in the hospital portfolio. Dr. Khalid, CEO of KGH, is also a firm believer in a holistic hospital. “A hospital has multiple concepts. The most common is just to treat the patient. However the hospital must also work for prevention, training, education and research”, says the visionary. The KGH College of Nursing was established in 2005 and affiliated with the Dow University of Health Sciences. It is offering diplomas in General Nursing, Midwifery, Community midwifery, Post RN BScN Programs and technician training in ten disciplines. It has, to date, trained 500 nurses from the area without charging tuition fees. The KGH also offers post-graduate teaching (recognized by the College of Physicians and Surgeons Pakistan and Pakistan Medical & Dental Council).
This decade has also seen the inauguration of the KGH Institute of Health Sciences, a new Obs/Gyne Private wing, the expansion of the emergency department and the college of Nursing in addition to the construction of a new educational block. The two things KGH is planning for the future which are not available at the moment are Cardiac surgery and Kidney dialysis which unquestionably will materialize shortly. This is due to the sheer drive and grit displayed over the century by management, staff and their philanthropic donors including Mr. Jan Mohammed’s immediate family, the Jan Muhammad Dawood Trust, the Marie Rahima Dawood Foundation, Dr. Billoo, Arif Habib Foundation, the Dalda Foundation, the Central Depository Committee of Pakistan Ltd. (CDC) and Al-Ameen Foundation amongst many others.
Surprisingly all this runs on a not-for-profit basis. “Our charges are practically around 20% compared to the larger hospitals” reveals Dr. Iqbal. In addition to these subsidized rates KGH has an assistance program where non-affording patients are assisted through a zakat fund, a fund from Kuala Lumpur Kepong Berhad (KLK) Malaysia for non-Muslims who don’t fall into the Zakat criteria and other donations. The hospital management even goes bed to bed and try to ascertain if financial assistance is required and about 25% of in-patients benefit from financial assistance. “We have a policy that any patient admitted to the hospital will not be discharged for the lack of funds. If one is here they must leave cured” says the kind-hearted businessman and philanthropist Mr. Jan Mohammed.
The strong relationship does not end when the patient leaves after treatment. An outreach department is available for assistance in case of financial problems to supply medicines, nourishment or free physiotherapy if needed. This sense of humanity also extends beyond the life of the patient at KGH. “In some hospitals, if there is a death, they don’t release that body unless the outstanding bills are paid. To me, it is heartless when a grieving family is asked to pay money to be able to claim the body of their loved one. So, in case of any death in the hospital, we do not ask for the remaining bill. It is up to the family, and if after ten days it is not paid we write it off. It is not a lot of cases (only about 8-12 a year), but we don’t want these 12 families to suffer and wait months or years to retrieve the body of a family member. We also transfer the body at our own cost in our own ambulance to the residence of the deceased”. Undoubtedly the hospital is being run in the most compassionate way possible.
Amazingly, in spite of being a non-profit and uniquely humane, the hospital continues to provide the best services and facilities to its beneficiaries. This is because they are determined not to compromise in salaries or quality with all of the 513-member staff employed at market rates.
Of course, there have been obstacles in the way of this humanitarian, healing locomotive. The area has historically suffered from law and order issues with the Lyari area known for crime and gang activity. “We continued working in this area even when the law and order situation was at its worst. Doctors were threatened with guns by people. One of our doctors was kidnapped, and we had to get him back. But the angels helped us a lot, and by the grace of God, the law and order situation has improved. But, we are still in a vulnerable area” states Mr. Bashir. Indeed, just last year in 2018 a grenade attack in Kharadar market left one dead and three injured following the non-payment of monthly extortion money by traders to local gangs.
The area around the hospital is also plagued with waste disposal, infrastructure and traffic control difficulties. “Whatever cleanliness we maintain within the hospital we cannot control the outside environment, and no one is looking over the condition of the roads which is a significant problem that we face. Another issue is the cost of electricity these days, and we are feeling the pinch. In case of a power outage, we have to run our generators the costs of which are also very high. So, problems such as law and order, civic amenities, traffic, and cleanliness outside the hospital arise in our day to day operation. But that has not and will not bar us from our mission.”
