KARACHI: Inspired by its model and success to become a welfare symbol in the health sector in Pakistan, philanthropists in Bangladesh have decided to replicate the Indus Health Network in their country to provide free-of-charge health facilities to their people, a top executive of the health facility said.

“A group of Bangladeshi philanthropists came to us and expressed their desire to establish health facilities and network of hospitals in Bangladesh,” Indus Hospital and Health Network (IHHN) president Abdul Bari Khan told a group of teachers and students of Dar-e-Arqam School, F.B Area Campus.

“They are going to establish first such health facility in Chittagong on the pattern of the Indus Hospital Karachi and sought our technical assistance in this regard.”

Delivering a talk on inception and creation of IHHN, Prof Khan said initiated by him along with a group of professionals with the support of some philanthropists and businessmen in 2007, The Indus Hospital (TIH) started its journey with a purpose to provide indiscriminate, quality healthcare to all in a state-of-the-art, paperless hospital in Karachi.

Dr Abdul Bari further said that they were soon going to establish a world-class university in Karachi for which they have been granted charter by the Sindh government, saying scholarships would be provided to top students who could not afford quality education at private universities in the country and abroad.

“When I was studying at the Dow Medical College and used to visit the Civil Hospital Karachi, I saw poor people who had to sell everything to get treatment for their children, parents and other family members while health facility was available at the so-called tertiary-care hospital in those days. There was no blood bank as there was no concept of voluntary blood donation in those days,” he said adding that sufferings of poor patients of the country, especially Sindh province compelled him to see the dream of a free of charge tertiary-care health facility in Karachi.

Paying rich tributes to his school teachers for making a hard working student who managed to get admission in a top medical college in the country and become a cardiac surgeon, Dr Khan said he got the opportunity to serve abroad like many other consultants, but he decided to remain in Pakistan despite strong opposition from his own family who later supported him to establish and run the IHHN.

He also praised people of Pakistan including schoolchildren, women, common men and philanthropists for donating during the times of natural and human-made disasters, saying Pakistani nation performs extraordinary during disasters which is evident from the 1965 war, earthquake of 2005, floods of 2010 and 2011 and many others disasters including the recent super floods in Sindh and Balochistan when billions and billions of rupees were donated to help people in distress.

Published in Dawn, January 23th, 2023